Visions of the future

After watching this interesting TED talk by Jesse Schell about the current and future direction technology is taking us, I was fairly concerned with his vision.

Jesse talks about how gaming concepts are slowly breaking out into the real world. He mentions many ways in which companies are promoting products through prizes, incentives, or essentially gold stars for behaviour or actions, and believes this is the direction which technology is taking us.

It reminded me of an episode of Black Mirror, a UK TV show which envisions alternative worlds, where technologies have drastically shaped the world in one way or another.

In this particular episode that I was reminded of, called “15 Million Merits”, citizens of the world live in a points system, which they earn by cycling all day. These points are equivalent to todays currency, and are used to purchase everything from food to skipping advertisements on the TV (something which can be seen on apps already).

The fact visions of a similar future have been conceived proves that it isn’t unrealistic. However, this kind of future doesn’t appeal to everyone. Lauren Abbas, fellow Digital Communication student thinks living by a points system is absurd.

“I’m capable of making my own decisions, I don’t need an incentive to eat healthily or save water. It sounds like another way the government could control our decisions or thoughts,” said Abbas.

It has to be said that in the “15 Million Merits” episode the characters are under complete control of the points system, and it is basically impossible to break out, so she may have a point.

In another episode, also set in the near future, characters have had a vision ‘grain’ implanted into their heads which records everything they see, and they are able to play it back whenever they like. On this idea, Lauren has no plans do to anything of the sort if the option became available.

However, she would be willing to partake if you didn’t have to get an implant and could simply… wear glasses… which, are actually a thing.

It is clear that we are on the verge of massive cultural changes through technology, and it is no coincidence that people are sharing similar visions of how it will manifest itself. But, as Lauren alluded to with her comment about government control, we must use these advances for positive change and not as in “15 Million Merits,” make ourselves suffer even more.

Media Today

Welcome to my new blog, which will be looking into the future of social media and its impact on society.

The world is changing faster now than it ever has before, and this acceleration of change shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, have existed for a miniscule amount of time, yet are already having a major impact on the planet.

These impacts are yet to be fully realized, but there are clear pros and cons for the emergence of social media. With new creations and ways of communicating continuing to surface at warp speed, it is becoming even more important to assess and predict how these mediums influence our lives.

Nobody can argue with the fact that social media has already caused monumental shifts in communication and beyond. It has brought the world closer together, and has simply bypassed political and economical structures that have existed for decades and even centuries in some cases.

There are very few corners of the earth that social media hasn’t touched, and while it is still up for debate whether or not that is a good thing or not, it definitely illustrates the power it holds.

Social media holds so much power because they all operate underneath the ‘Coasean Floor’*, meaning that for completely free, people can work together, create and share things, and even destroy things, as we have seen with social media led riots and protests across the globe.

An perfect example of creating and sharing are ‘memes’:

This is one of the more thought-provoking memes that you will find while scrolling down your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other social media feed, but I think it highlights one the negative aspects of the digital age we are entering is producing. Is our technology on the verge of surpassing us? Has it already surpassed us? What are the implications of this?

The video below discusses how new technologies may be affecting our mental health.

Social media has already changed the way we look at the world, but what does it hold for us in the future?

It probably won’t be too long before we find out…

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“Coasean floor”, the phrase coined by Clay Shirky in his book ‘Here Comes Everybody,’ refers to:

The point below which there isn’t enough profit from transactions for a particular type of activity to meet the overhead costs of setting up a traditional institution.