Fdvr Social Interaction And Social Media Adaptation

[CaelesMessorem]

So I saw mention in a few of the sub topics of social interaction in VR and figured I would make a topic about it. Some of my questions on the matter are as follows:

 

- How do you think social interaction will change with the implementation (and adaptation) of FD technology

- In what ways will this tech potentially improve or worsen peoples' current social interaction skills both in and out of VR

- In what ways would the FDVR tech allow for social interaction, meaning what are some of the mediums you believe would be added for this purpose

- Can/ should social media be adapted for use in this tech, and if so, would it add another possibility for addiction to the tech given society's current addiction to social media

 

We know for a fact that this kind of technology would change the way we interact with one another. I feel as though it would give us a greater sense of presence when speaking to someone rather than current social media, which is either just by voice or just by text. Even in comparison to something such as skype which allows visual interaction, it is still easier for most people to do this than to speak face to face. With FD tech, it would make it to where you are either more anonymous than skype, utilizing an avatar for appearance but are still actually there to interact (like the chat rooms shown in some of the episodes in the anime Psycho-Pass), or you could use your actual appearance as your avatar (like in the anime Ghost in the Shell), all of this just being in chat rooms mind you. I think us speaking this way could begin to break down the fear of speaking face to face because it forces us to actually respond to situations that arise. Sure they could just log out, but the confrontation itself, I feel, is beneficial, as most people now just hide behind a name, accost people and leave without so much as batting an eyelash. We have to wonder if physically being in the conversation (not as in physical body, but in terms of presence) will curb potential bullying, not change it at all, or make it worse, and will this medium assist in rehabilitating those who find human to human interaction in the real world difficult.

 

Touching on the social media point, personally I don't think it should be adapted, but I know there are certain things that would be alright. I just think that while allowing us to connect more, social media itself became the focus rather than the interactions it brings which warped our concept of what interaction is. The only social media I use personally is Instagram, and I only follow people I know or have met, and photography/ art/ quote accounts. I still prefer to see and be with my friends as opposed to just throwing text, pictures or videos at them. But what do you guys think? Should social media be used? And if so, how could we improve it for this medium to make it more than just a vanity and ego exhibition?

[CraigD]

Good topic! :thumbs_up

 

- How do you think social interaction will change with the implementation (and adaptation) of FD technology

I think FullDive technology would promote social interaction, and that the social interaction it would promote would be psychologically healthier than that promoted by present day social media.

 

Because true virtual reality would by reasonable definition be indistinguishable from actual reality, social interaction in a VR world would be identical to social interaction in the actual world, except without negative features, such people who live far from one another not being able to meet often, or being actually injured or killed in an accident or attack.

 

- In what ways will this tech potentially improve or worsen peoples' current social interaction skills both in and out of VR

Because it could promote people having more social interaction, I think it would improve peoples’ social skills, at least in VR.

 

I’m not sure how it would affect social skills in actual reality.

 

On one hand, my personal experience is that interaction in non-VR role-playing games can have positive effects on people’s personalities, social skills, and other skills, that are reflected in actual reality. I’ve spoken with several gamers who, when faced with a stressful or dangerous actual reality situation, found themselves consciously drawing on game experience to cope

 

On the other, because a virtue of socializing in VR is that it’s more convenient and safer than actual reality, people might prefer it to the exclusion of socializing in actual reality, maybe even become pathologically afraid of actual reality, especially if ones VR social scene involves a lot of virtual danger and death.

 

I’m really unsure which of these would be more prevalent. The impact of true VR on people’s AR skills would, I expect, be net positive for some people, negative for others.

 

- Can/ should social media be adapted for use in this tech, and if so, would it add another possibility for addiction to the tech given society's current addiction to social media

I think this is a very interesting question, not only as a hypothetical about the future, but as it relates to recent history.

 

“Social media” is a buzz phrase. What it means, in most cases, is exchanging short text posts and, less often, images, in a [semi]public forum, with a turnaround time – the time between replies – of minutes, hours, or days. Face-to-face social interaction, VR or AR, is primarily vocal, then visual, with a turnaround time of no more than a few seconds. Social media and true VR share the virtues of convenience and safety, but VR has a higher bandwidth.

 

It’s tempting to assert that VR is innately better than social media, and would replace it. This, however, evokes the question “why, then, is social media so much more popular now than VR?”

 

Much like now, 30 years ago thousands of people wanted true, immersive VR, and were not far from successfully creating it. There were notable successes in developing and bringing VR systems to market. That these enterprises were ultimately not very successful was not, I think, due to technical failures, but market failures – though customers flocked to systems like Virtuality arcade games, after the novelty of these systems faded, customers returned to old-fashioned, 2D screen and controller systems. About half of present-day console video games and large screen TV/monitors support 3D display, and motion/position sensitive pointing devices, yet most people with this hardware prefer to play these games in 2D with conventional button and stick controllers.

 

Neil Stephenson’s breakthrough 1992 novel Snow Crash (if you haven’t read this book, do so, immediately!) described an VR-centric internet circa about 2015 (now). In 1992, when I, and most of the information tech futurists I knew, read Snow Crash (it’s “must read” status spread quickly among IT folk – I was so eager, I got a copy mailed from the UK, before it was available in US bookstores), believed it to be prophetic in its description of the internet-to-come. We really expected that by now, we’d be spending most of our working and playing time in an immersive VR world.

 

As – no, more, I think – important as technical questions about how to make the best VR systems, are question like “why haven’t we made them yet?” and “why don’t customers really want them?”

[CaelesMessorem]

Because true virtual reality would by reasonable definition be indistinguishable from actual reality, social interaction in a VR world would be identical to social interaction in the actual world, except without negative features, such people who live far from one another not being able to meet often, or being actually injured or killed in an accident or attack.

  

   I hadn't even considerd the influence that factors such as environment, frequency and distance had on social interactions. Very important factors. Thank you for bringing those to light. With this information in mind, it sounds like, for the moment, the pros are beginning to outweigh the cons as far as VR to AR interaction goes, so I think that it would be important to play up the benefits of social skills gained in a VR environment for utilization in AR social situations.

 

  As we've seen from discussions in a few different sub-topics in the FDVR thread, if someone has a means to acheive a more preferable outcome for any number of situations or reasons, they will take it. If FDVR is that means, they will forsake Actual Reality for one that provides a more accepting environment ( I refered to those that shun AR for VR as "Spurned" in this post). That being said, if we can somehow show that their ability to talk and interact with people has improved, and that that improvement can help immensly in AR for a variety of different things, it may provide more incentive to come back to AR to put those new and/ or improved skills to work. In theory it would keep from people wanting to use FDVR as a portal to a better life and portray it more as a way to interact and improve. Though, I feel addiction and rejection are the extremes as far as negative effects would go.

 

 

It’s tempting to assert that VR is innately better than social media, and would replace it. This, however, evokes the question “why, then, is social media so much more popular now than VR?”

  

   I think the social media craze is a result of our unfathomable emphasis placed on image and material wealth within the past few years. With this emphasis, people place higher priority on how they look in certain situations and what they have to show off. As such, social media becomes the ideal outlet to showcase these things easily in exchange for recognition and admiration on a large scale. I don't think that this in intself is the reason for its popularity though. Rather, I think it's due to the actual receipt of recognition and admiration from these sources that makes the medium so popular. By comparison, as far as the popularity of VR goes, people need instant gratification. VR at the moment is a concept, and as such can't be comprehended by the general public. It may be an unfair blanket statement, but I believe that most people are ignorant to the potential of a technology if it hasn't already been given form. People can't get hyped about VR or its overwhelming potential because they can't USE the concept, and as such settle for social media which is not only readily available but provides the desired results with little effort on their part.

   In order to show the improvement that FDVR will bring to this front, we have to develop a means that at face value provides the same kind of service as twitter, instagram and other popular social media outlets, but in actuality is just allowing you to share these things while being physically present. By doing it this way, we might be able to gradually move away from those methods of interaction to more beneficial ones, while simultaneously (and subconciously) asserting the usefulness of the technology as the new social trend.

 

 

As – no, more, I think – important as technical questions about how to make the best VR systems, are question like “why haven’t we made them yet?” and “why don’t customers really want them?”

  

   The thing is, I believe we have made forms of them in their corresponding times. The Wii and Xbox 360's Connect were steps towards this end. The improvement of both of those with the WiiU and XbOne were a refinement to this step, which has lead to the innovative creation of Occulus' Crescent Bay et al. We have toyed with the prospect of VR, but until recently I don't think we had the ability to really understand what we need to know and do in order to acheive it. With E3 coming up ( Gigantic gaming convention coming up on June 15th), where not only will all the new games, consoles and tools be showcased, supposedly the consumer products for all Simulated VR companies like Occulus will be unveiled and shown off. It may seem strange, but I think that how these companies made these devices and how the public receives them once they become available will be paramount to grabbing their attention and focusing it on the VR field. Right now, people are incredibly skeptical and cynical about Simulated VR tech, while also really hopeful and excited at the prospect of a new way to play. Sure we have had similar moments in history with other devices, but technology now doesn't compare to then, and I think that if they get it right this time, the ideas will catch like fire.

 

   It's important to remember though that just getting the attention is what is needed in terms of popularity. The versatility FDVR tech will provide will push the device into every market, making it usable for a large amount of purposes. It's very likely to become the new norm if done correctly, similarly to how computers are commonplace now in comparison to when they were first being produced. They revolutionized how we do everything, especially communicate. I think that with the creation of FDVR, it will follow the same path.

Edited June 6, 2015 by CaelesMessorem

[JimSolo]

It depends in what field of social interaction you are discussing. DiveTech will not be availible for everyone for a long time, and in that time our current understanding of social interaction may change completely. If you're basing it on todays standards, however, and if it were accessable to everyone? The changes would be off the charts.

 

First off the possibilities to actually talk to someone face to face. Skype goes a long way to helping that sort of thing, but it is still just webcams and video feeds. This is 3d virtual environments, with graphical, audio and physics tuning by ~2020, it will be almost indestinguishable from reality unless forcibly made so. With that in mind however, it is still not reality, and this is where the whole 'morale' thing kicks in.

 

"All them young whippersnappiers like usin fulldive, no one ever talks to each other anymore, no one ever wakes up from that stupid computer thing". Oh please. Yet in this generation we all have our faces stuffed in computers (I'm the definition of cliche stereotypes when it comes to that topic), and smartphones. It's the natural progression of things. Back in the 1800's kids used to hang out in school yards. In the early 1900's the hung out in backyards or whatever. In the 70s and 80s they all hung out in cafe diners and called each otehr on 'them there new telephone gizmo's'. Now we have instant messaging and the like. it's the natural progression of things.

 

There is some merit to that though, in that because it is the next step, it should be taken with moderation and worked out properly from the get go. That dosn't mean it should be physically limited, but the risks of mental and physical health changes should be made apparent to users right from day 1. What they do with it after that is their own choices.

 

In addition to that, data sent into the reality can only be what the party on either end has provided (with the possible exception of ingame browsers to validate things on the Net. Even so, that is still 'provided information'). The chances of everything being true to life are pretty much zilch. Look at the internet today. Even I don't use my real name. There's no pictures of my face on the net outside of facebook friends and the like, and the only indication of where I live is "He lives in that country filled with british convicts that have funny accents and everything is upside down". Sumthin to think about.

 

DiveTech will likely will improve peopels perception of interaction, because in their minds they are 'seeing' the other person. It's mindgames in a way, without it really being. If that makes sense. Anyone with any psycological training will understand.
 

I also believe social networks system will be setup within it, since there will likely be a 'second net' for DiveTech. I envision it as a program you can go into and swap between games or locations within the reality without breaking the dive. It's different to what's portrayed in SAO.

 

 

My 2 cents. I yabbered more about social networking than social adaptation, but I covered what I think about public acceptance vaguely anyway. I'll have a full post about morale in my official thread.

[CaelesMessorem]

It depends in what field of social interaction you are discussing. DiveTech will not be availible for everyone for a long time, and in that time our current understanding of social interaction may change completely. If you're basing it on todays standards, however, and if it were accessable to everyone? The changes would be off the charts.

 

   You are indeed correct in regards to the potential for our norms in social interaction to change, but I have to point out that myspace (the first real social media outlet to come out that gained any momentum, aside from IM services like AOL) was made around 2003, follwed by facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Instagram in 2010 and snapchat in 2011. (If I'm missing any it's because I personally dislike social media to an extent and don't keep up with them all). What this is saying is that from 2003 until now(2015), not only has social media evolved dramatically over the past decade, it has become a social addiction and the regular means of communication for people of all ages. Even if DiveTech is another decade or two out, if the trend continues things will only get worse. That's why I put a bit of emphasis on the notion of making it feel like social media while closely replicating the feel of face to face interactions from AR. Strangely enough, while getting used to connecting with each other through FDTech will be a big change, I think more than that will be the psychological change of actually speaking to someone compared to our current "post and wait" interactions. This change though, I believe, will be important for getting our social skills back on track, as we have become immensely handicapped in social environments and situations.

 

 

Here's a quote:

the more science and technology progresses, the lonelier man gets. 

think about what this means. 

 

   It's definitely true that our current level of technology has made us lonely while simultaneously making us more accessible to one another. But with the complexity of this technology (FDTech) and our cumulative knowledge of social interaction, why does that have to remain the case? I think we are more than capable of preventing complete emotional isolation brought about by our technological advancements, we just have to understand how important that actually is and make it a part of the development processes. I think on the point of social interaction and social media, we have a crossroad ahead of us, one path continuing our current course of living in our own world and sharing it with others, while the other re-introduces the intimacy and adaptability that talking with another human being, in person, and experiencing the same world together brings. (FDT obviously wouldn't be the traditional notion of "in person", but the representation that that's the circumstance may make that fact indistinguishable to those that frequent Dive Tech as their method of communication).

 

[Mactyville]

With all that said... I'd like to point out directly that the negative effects of this.. no more like the one I see is that in the collective there are always people who's on loneliest part of the society or should I say they do not dwell on the society at all.. with full dive they'll only become chain bound by this trapped in their own virtual "ideal" world. They'll become trapped by this..they'll only sink deeper and deeper away from the society.

 

Thinking I don't need people around me.. I'll just go to my own world...

 

However such thing is condescending..after all deep in our hearts we also have times when we think that if only I could enter my own world. That's due to our suffering that we keep a hold of such thoughts...or rather ideals.

 

And it's inevitably coming to reality...full dive that is.

[Mactyville]

I can't deny this.. after all I'm one of those.. perhaps slightly on the far side of society.. so I admit that even I am thinking of such things sometimes.. Going or a least creating a world that is similar as what I've always pictured out..

[CaelesMessorem]

Alhtough it is true that such 'fulldive' technology will create the sense of talking to another human being, I am unsure if that will actually make us more 'sociable'. However, It is true that it will perhaps make humans more communicable in a physical form, which differs from the anonymous, digital communication that social media and other such technology offers, which may in turn, to quote, 're-introduce the intimacy and adaptibilty with another human being, in person, and experiencing the same world together'. Your theory does seem to hold up to common logic, however, it is only, without facts and scientific obersvation, only a theory. 

 

    Whether or not it makes us more sociable altogether is completely dependant on the individual, but still very possible given the circumstances in which those using FDVR would be communicating. It would most definitely improve basic social skills at the very least, as there is no down time between responses when speaking in person as there is in current social media, and as such requires a certain degree of awareness and adaptability.

 

Scientific observation can be carried out by anyone with an objective view, coupled with sufficient knowledge to discern between outcomes resulting from changing variables. For example, with the topic of social media and communication in mind, I don't need a Masters in Sociology or Psychology to be able to tell that phones have evolved from just a tool used to communicate to being the cornerstone of all social interaction (depending on the generation we are referring to).

 

Theory is based on currently accepted facts and principles, peppered with speculation begot by supposition in an effort to advance. My theory that our social behavior can potentially improve from its current level, with the help of FDVR Tech, is a result of facts and scientific reasoning, the source of which being my experience objectively perceiving social situations I have found myself in. The entire FDVR topic is all theoretical, and yet we find ourselves actively participating in its progression. How can one discount a theory formed in a theoretical discussion?

 

 

I would also like to bring up another topic, is the barrier between reality, and fantasy. With the introduction of such 'FullDive' technology, we will have in fact, for the first time in history introduced a fantasy world comparable to that of a dream. I believe these will have negative connotations for society, and humanity as a whole. This is because we have essentially offered a 'second reality', indistinguishable from reality. An example will be current computer/ console gaming. These generally have caused wide disruptions in many countries, as people play these, and priorities playing these above other tasks, such as learning.  Therefore, some people may spend more time in this 2nd world, than actual reality. Secondly, due to fulldive tech being indistinguishable from reality, How would the mind react to repeatedly changing in and out of these worlds? IMO, one would go medically insane, as they become unable to distinguish what is real, and what is not. For example, there was a study that showed that children who played more violent video games grew up to be more, well, violent. Could we possibly see an extreme case of this occurrence? 

 

   People already have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy, a good example being Otaku culture. The degree of dichotomy of fantasy and reality is more a result of obsession, which will likely be ever-present present in the human phsyche, not to mention that other people play a large role as well.  While there will always remain a negative side to everything we as humans do and create, whether or not something can be singled out as the cause of such negativity is more a matter of philosophy.

 

 

With all that said... I'd like to point out directly that the negative effects of this.. no more like the one I see is that in the collective there are always people who's on loneliest part of the society or should I say they do not dwell on the society at all.. with full dive they'll only become chain bound by this trapped in their own virtual "ideal" world. They'll become trapped by this..they'll only sink deeper and deeper away from the society.

 

Thinking I don't need people around me.. I'll just go to my own world...

 

However such thing is condescending..after all deep in our hearts we also have times when we think that if only I could enter my own world. That's due to our suffering that we keep a hold of such thoughts...or rather ideals.

 

And it's inevitably coming to reality...full dive that is.

 

   While I do think that measures need to be taken to prevent a flood of "spurned" (a designation from this post), I also don't think it's entirely unreasonable for people to find comfort and acceptance through FDTech, if that's their wish. It's a tricky situation, and one that requires a lot of research and awareness to ensure the safety of those using this technology.

[CaelesMessorem]

We cannot have a society where even 1% of a population spends more than say 50% of their time in VR, which in the case it works in the current proposed model (nerve paralysis) will cause muscular breakdown and inability to perceive the difference between reality and fantasy. An example of such dangers would be apparent in school aged children. It is completely possible that they may spend more time playing games such as Minecraft in VR rather than doing essential school study. Is this an acceptable future for education?

 

  Regarding the overuse of VR, I remember seeing late in the SAO-GGO anime that the nurse watching over Kirito (or Asuna. Can't quite remember) mentioned the AmuSphere automatically shuts down if something in the body goes wrong (they specifically mentioned dehydration in the show). With this, we can infer that the rig has body monitoring functions built in so as to preserve the user in case of emergency. I think that adapted forms of monitoring and auto logout/ shutdown protocols could make it to where you are physically unable to dive unless the rig deems your body is in a state safe to dive. This would mean monitoring all vitals (Temperature, pulse, oxygen levels, etc) in addition to basic bodily functions. For instance, you would be notified during your dive if your body in AR is getting hungry. If you put it off to the point where the rig thinks it's a risk, it will automatically log you out and shut down, and will not allow a re-log until you eat something. People won't be allowed to stay in at the risk of putting themselves in danger or neglecting aspects of AR they HAVE to adhere to. The only acceptions would be in situations where medical conditions and other circumstances have been taken into account with the dive protocols, allowing them to dive despite something that may be wrong with their body in AR.

 

   As far as education, I honestly don't see a way to circumvent that unless it's something that would be built in to the rig to prohibit it. For instance students would not be allowed to bring their own devices and would use those provided by the instructor or institution. But my problem with that is it could also be used negatively, and severing outside connection could be problematic. It comes down to having to trust those that wish to study to study, and those that do not, not to.