We are social creatures by all standards. We thrive in the ability to communicate with others. I have been a huge proponent of technology and its benefits, but the biggest criticism I’ve heard over the years is the lack of social interaction you get with computers. I always begged to differ and here are some reasons why.
Technology exploded when it was exploited as a social tool. Just look at the internet. It was a tool to make it easy to communicate with each other. This eventually turned into many basic websites and finally into the Web 2.0 applications we see today. It was all about communication and creating a virtual connection.
This is obviously not the equivalent of meeting someone in real life, but it has the necessary elements for it to qualify as social interaction. In some cases, I’d say the communication online is better since you can reach a more diverse set of people, which makes finding communities with the same interets much easier. In “real” life, you may just be plain out of luck. I can relate to this as a raw vegan.
In terms of creating software, I would personally stress having social features in the game. Interacting with someone who is real behind the scenes is much more fun than playing with artifical intelligence. This is simply evidenced with the popularity of multiplayer games. The same type interactivty could be introduced into educational games. Students could communicate with other students via chat, voice, or video after taking the same lesson. They could also compete with each other with some sort of points system. They could even teach each other as part of a learning task. The possiblities are endless.
The point is that we need to realize that our need to socialize and communicate is inherant in our genes. Technology is simply an expression of that. There is absolutely no reason to worry about technology making the world a more dull place. I think it’s become as lively as ever.
Carl Zetterlund
