Someone asked recently "What do you technical peers think of Second Life"? The question was aimed at a potential culture war. If the technorati didn't believe in Second Life, or its peers, it wouldn't be worth getting involved - even though the 3Dsocialnet is a very real evolution. My answer is...If you are over 35, and you go into SL, you look around, see, perhaps, interesting things, but are not compelled to act. You may never go back in, or if you do it is unlikely that you will become part of the socail fabric. If you are under 35, this is how it works. You are sitting next to your friend, say close enough to reach out an touch them, but you are text paging him on your cell. This is the equivalent of passing (paper) notes in class, but does not take place in the physical world. Similarly, when you are liesuring, you sit on the couch, across the room or next to your friend - doesn't matter. You are interacting, with your vehicle or avatar, through the TV screen. Since you can remember the internet, IM, and online video games have existed. SL is nothing but a more faithful rendering of the IT disintermediated world in which you live - - why wouldn't you gravitate toward it? Why doesn't Gen X or Gen Boom think this way? Why does IT often seem like an impediment to interacting with other humans?
Gen X. If you think about it, this is how it worked, once you woke up in the morning, got dressed, ate your breakfast, you were out - of the house. Playing with your friends, on the weekends all day long. One game after another, whether it was city stickball, combing the woods, or kickball, you were physically interacting with other humans as your primary means of social interaction. Even today, when I call my friend, we spend about 2 min.s otp, and only to determine where, in the real world we will meet. IT was not the social fabric of our formative years. Can we adjust, yes, but it is just that an adjustment from dead center.
You might be able to gauge someone's level of IT disintermediation by walking the sequence of IT across which they have traversed. Just to use myself as an example:
-1. A Pong console
0. 1982 purchased a Smith Corona Correctable Typewriter for college
1. 1983 Second semester I was acquainted with an Apple IIe for wordprocessing, $325 down the drain on that SC. Very difficult to use, cntrl-x for 20+ key combos
2. 1984 Moved to the computer lab, maybe 20 IBM ATs/XCs with which we did word processing on wordvision. I was hooked at that point
3. 1985 Took Fortan 77 & Pascal on the Burroughs 5500
4. 1984 Took Fortan IV on another MF
5. 1985 Commodore 64
6- IBM PCs
7- Sperry-Univac
8-Prime
9-Mac
10-and so on util today IBM T43
Somewhere in the middle of the span, which is still moving, is my burn in point for the computer concept & my relation to it. Sure, it will change, but it is an anchor nonetheless, from which I perceive the world.
1 comment:
Tim,
Nice post. I used to talk about sociological/technological cycles and use myself and e-mail as an example. I went thtough three phases: rejection (only university geeks use it and it does not affect me), acceptance (hey, you mean I can communicate with people important to me using e-mail?), and expectance (I can't adequately function if I don't have e-mail).
The implication of what you have said is that there are also generational levels to this cyclical process. The question I'd like to see addressed is how does this impact future organizational dynamics?
Post a Comment