J-How do you imagine social interaction within 10 years, taking into consideration the impact

of technology on human relations?

Giulia GiovannardiIE Application

This sentence was my grandma’s favourite saying everytime I changed school or city due to my father’s job. My grandma for sure did not know about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but she knows people very well. I found this true everytime. Over the centuries Humankind has always looked for new ways to communicate and interact with one another, starting from signs, language but also art. The last century saw an increasing number of inventions aimed at facilitating communication amongst human beings. Internet was the last invention that enhanced social interactions. It has facilitated the way we communicate, it has created a new place where we can interact beyond space and time, across cities, countries and continents.

 

Introduction

«GIULIA, AMORE, DO NOT WORRY HUMAN BEINGS ARE SOCIAL IN NATURE»

A lot has changed since internet arrived, social networks came into our life and the web is more and more 2.0. We interact more and more online and even when we meet we talk a lot about «what happened online» especially on social networks like Facebook or Instagram or, instead of talking, we are staring at our phones . This aspect is shown very well in the video “ I forgot my phone”.

Besides this, I think that the digital world has become another environment like the Greek «agora» where express their opinions. I see in this new “agora” a trend among people in building trust. People go online to look for news, products to buy, restaurants to try but before they seek for other people’s feedback.

Background

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Mccridle.com

HUMAN RELATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY TODAY

THE GENERATION

Social interactions will be also dependent on the generation that will be present in 10 year time. Characteristics/traits of these Generations dictate how our interactions will be.

Generations y , z and the upcoming alpha share the widespread usage of technology since a very young age. I belong to generation Y also known as Millennials, I had the great chance to see the transition from the first cell phone to the first iphone. My friends and I had a great excitement for technology while Generation Z, instead, are the true digital natives, they do not recall a time before the digital world. They take information instantaneously and loses interest very fast, they embrace anonymous social media platforms like secret or whisper as well as Snapchat where images, videos disappear almost instantaneously. They value a lot privacy, they are aware that online they are a personal brand. These generations will be the main characters of social interaction in 10 year-time. Also known as

millenials

The Human being of XX century does not exist anymore, we evolved ourselves. Now we are new species that live in symbiosis with digital technologies.

https://www.instagram.com/p/-uDP0FieEH/?taken-by=jennymwalton

Downshifting is a social behavior or trend in which individuals live simpler lives to escape from the rat race of obsessive materialism and to reduce the “stress, overtime, and psychological expense that may accompany it”. It emphasizes finding an improved balance between leisure and work and focusing life goals on personal fulfilment and building relationships instead of the all-consuming pursuit of economic success*

HOWEVER DOWNSHIFTERS ARE RISING

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downshifting#Downshifting_geographically

• Live slower inlcuding slow food slow fashion slow living• Live and interact more with the Dear ones• Live unplug

Mark up March 2016

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS 2016-2026 : TECHNOLOGY’S OVERVIEW

Technology is evolving faster and faster as well as social media and social communities. In the next 10 years we will find

• Internet/Wi-Fi also in the garden parks since it will be available everywhere and for sure it will be faster and cheaper.

• Social media will evolve being more social

• Phone call will not exist anymore because they will be replaced by voice messages or video or text chat.

• New Devices will enable us to have information by just looking at the surroundings. Kurzweil says that “By 2020 we’ll routinely have pop ups in our visual field of view that give us background about the people and places that we’re looking at” .

Discussion

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS 2016-2026 : TECHNOLOGY AND POSITIVE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON HUMAN RELATIONS

New technologies will impact our society and social relationship in both positive and negative ways.

Regarding positive aspects:

• By 2030, 30 billions devices will be connected* in the world hopefully also in countries where now it is difficult to communicate.

• Communication will be improved and we will always be in touch with family and friends, regardless of geographical obstacles.

• Sophisticated translation devices will help us in relating to more people from all over the world

• New Technologies, will help people who cannot move from home or hospital to improve and increase the opportunity to relate to people. Social media will allow us to check also the health of a person only by looking at her web page.

*http://www.leggo.it/tecnologia/news/2030_web_connessioni_30_miliardi-323248.html

- Nowadays , on FB people tend to show themselves with some “corrections”, I think that in the future, instead, Social networks such as “ KOKO” will be implemented. “KOKO “ is a platform to share fears, anxieties with unknown people who in turn will give help. It is an “ iPhone app that aims at helping people to fix the bugs in their thinking by crowdsourcing cognitive behavioral techniques, (…) it is world's first social network for dealing with depression it encourages people to "snack" on KOKO throughout the day, spending a few minutes here and there to practice positive thinking”.*

- Concerning the public and social milieu, technology will empower citizens, by facilitating aggregation and the building up of interest groups that will have a say in the democratic arena. Moreover it will empower also circles of help where citizens can help each other where the national government or municipalities will not be able to. Crowdfunding is an example of circle of help , it will help even more than today new technologies to develop.

*http://www.fastcodesign.com/3044578/mit-student-develops-a-facebook-for-depression

• Students will also have the possibility to interact and communicate with other schools even abroad. I think the future technologies will help the educational systems at large. Social networks of the future will involve schools.

• Home based work may increase leading to an iimprovement in the work-life balance of a person, decreasing companies’ costs.

• Conference calls will be easier thank to a faster internet line and also to Virtual Reality.

• Companies will be able to collect data easily from consumers in order to develop products, create ad hoc marketing campaigns. Moreover technologies will empower consumers and they will deal directly with brands.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS 2016-2026 : TECHNOLOGY AND DRAWBACKS ON HUMAN RELATIONS

Concerning negative aspects:

• In 2001 according to a poll , on average one American had 10 close friends, the same poll in 2014 said that the average was 2*, social network may have contributed to the decrease in quality of relationships and face to face communication may get worse in the years to come. Friendship may have new meanings and language that is the main vehicle through which we communicated may change may be richer in shortcuts.

*Ted x SMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5GecYjy9-Q

• Being a generation of second screen we may have less concentration skills, able to be multitasking not paying attention to details.

• Moreover Virtual Reality devices will be developed, virtual display will be able to take over our entire visual field, putting us in a three-dimensional full immersion Virtual Reality environment. A lot of our personal and business meetings will take place in these 3D virtual worlds. The design of new virtual environments will be an art form. We’ll even have ways to touch one another virtually*.

• Cybelbulling may worsen and new forms of addiction such as the IAD (Internet addiction disorder ) may arise

• Personal data will be increasingly important, for this reason Hackers will be more threatening.

* http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/top-futurist-ray-kurzweil-predicts-technology-change-humanity-2020-article-1.437322

• Virtual Reality may affect in a drammatic way social interactions. During the world mobile in Barcelona, newspaper published this picture, which received lots of negative comments on twitter. It reminded me of George Orwell’s 1984 or the Tv series Black Mirror. Facebook created a « social virtual team»* to work on virtual reality. Virtual reality is something that scares me since it really can take out the human and social part in the interactions.

* http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/74d44ad4-d8c3-11e5-9ba8-3abc1e7247e4.html#axzz43uolgZ46

A recent survey* shows that Generation Z (born after 1995) is less comfortable in cyberspace, 60% of them say they prefer to interact with friends in person. These traits of Generation Z are comforting, they are more aware, than the previous generations, of how social interactions online may have side effects (61% of them know somebody who has been cyberbullied or stalked online ). According to Strauss and Howe generation Y and ALPHA have a strong sense of community both local and global ( i.e. sharing economy) and they are civic – minded.

*Survey from Northeastern University

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS 2016-2026 ‘S GENERATIONS

CONCLUSIONS

The future technologies will enable us to communicate smoothly with the others beyond space, time and language. However privacy will be more and more important, since personal data will be the future’s «currency». The Virtual reality devices may be scary but they will enable us to make our long distance relationships easier. I agree on what Pope Francis has recently stated “ in the net I can see a vocation of humankind in being connected and united” , internet will help people to gather, building networks and circles of help.

In the end even though I believe in the law of Unintended Consequences that states that we cannot really say how innovation will impact our relations, I do not see the future as a dystopian novel. I think that downshifters and the future leading generations are more aware of the positive and negative aspects of technology on relations and on privacy, than the previous one, and they ready to welcome the future.

• Wired Italia winter edition 2015