This is my first time at SXSW and I’ve been told that once you’re down here, you will begin to notice themes developing across the sessions, and conversations springing up from those themes. No doubt about it, there have been a couple of themes developing just within the first 48 hours of being here.
Jeana, Natalie, Jonathan, Richard and I all started to hear conversations and sessions speak to loss of serendipity as we march toward a more integrated, technological future. The more connected we all become and more technology we use day-to-day to ‘assist’ in our lives, we must remain vigilant and not lose sight of what we could potentially be giving up. Let me explain:
We’ve all had that moment where we have experienced that accidental run in with someone incredible, whether it be personal, professional, romantic, or random. This moment when we meet someone, that we’ve never even thought or anticipated, can be a joyous occasion or a terrible event. Often times, this meeting changes us in an inherent, unconscious level. A feeling of connectivity surfaces and we tend to feel closer to those around us and not so alienated from the world.
However, it’s becoming more of a practice that when we meet someone, we search for them online, see what they’re about, analyze their professional career on LinkedIn, check out their personal life on Facebook, read their tweets on Twitter, and maybe even watch their videos on YouTube. I, honestly, don’t see this as being an issue, and quite frankly, I don’t see it as stalking. I prefer to call it diligence. This is a common practice by all of us, wanting to know more about a person after meeting them in that serendipitous moment. But, what if we were to take out that unique and exciting happenstance meeting from life? What if we are moving towards a culture where we wear our histories, passions and interests are painted on our heads for the world to see and determine if we’re worthy of a chat. (An online chat that is) A world where the virtual layer not only sits on top of the real layer, but becomes a part of it.
Yesterday I attended a session on Augmented Reality where that transparent reality direction was discussed. In the future, and this is the near future, we’ll be wearing ‘goggles’ that act like our phones. Ones that can seamlessly present the virtual layer on top of real life. We all can walk around and tag people, do our ‘diligence’ on others before we even walk past them, and target those who we want to speak to, find someone to date, link up with professionally, or someone to just get concert tickets from. Even that initial conversation can be started by sending a “poke.” These new tools will aid us in selecting those who best fit our lives. Conversely and sadly, these virtual tactics can also be used to ‘virtually’ eliminate those that we feel we don’t want to have anything to deal with. Will this sort of technology eliminate serendipity of life? Do we want to lose that ‘serendipitous’ moment? It will make our lives easier and faster, but at what expense?
Once we start using these technologies, will we sacrifice the serendipitous moment that we all have been used to for the benefit of, what seems like, increased connectivity? Yes, that ‘moment’ may not be the best ‘moment’ all the time, but isn’t that where the adventure is? Is it worth it to us to save that moment? Will we as a culture, be happier because we now know exactly who we want to talk to rather than trial-and-error when meeting people. And ultimately, will technologies like augmented-reality and search open up our networks and multi-user connectivity, or will they alienate us from others?
These are the questions that have been popping up in conversations during the last 48 hours down here at SXSWi. We may not have the answers to all these questions, and most likely we won’t. However, I feel, that as we move forward as a culture that becomes increasingly dependent on technology, we must remain vigilant that we are not giving up that which makes life exciting and makes us human.
Leif is a Community Moderator in our Chicago office.
