Asians are virtual already, how long before we are too? (Part 3)

(Part 1, Part 2 – with slideshow and video)

I would like now to move on to the second part of my talk, the one connecting online and offline behaviors.
Just like many of you, I was surprised when I heard about, or witnessed, some extreme behaviors:
- Flaming wars in forums
- Guys dying in Internet cafes
- Parents neglecting their “offline” baby in favor of some online thing
- People protesting online
- Bots mistaken for people and people mistaken for bots
- Even Chatroulette was interesting – though at that time it was not a surprise to me anymore. At least the creativity of people such as the piano guy, remains encouraging to witness, and stays alive as long as the environment does not reach a too high toxicity.

So what did I find in social psychology and social dynamics? I picked a few key things:

- People’s behavior is largely shaped by their environment. The simplest example is the “broken window theory”.

- People behave differently according to the likelihood of getting caught, or interacting again. There are examples from Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment” to the abuses of Abu Ghraib, or simply “would you cheat a stranger if you knew you will never meet him again”. The depressing answer to this is: many people would. You can study Stanley Milgram’s “Obedience to Authority” experiment to see the reality of it.

- There are mechanisms to socialization and even seduction. I studied the research done by various social coaches, and looked into ways to engage and interact with total strangers. I even advised a startup who was developing an iPhone app just for that purpose.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go into details about those mechanisms but in short, they mean that as a service operator or “virtual world” builder, or a “resident”, there are ways to improve dramatically socialization and behaviors within digital environments.

Which leads me to the conclusion of my talk: what about the future of digital socialization, and the business around it?

There is enough research and proven cases out there showing what people are happy to pay for, so the business aspects I am not worried about. It is more about the pace: things like the semantic cells around “virtual” and “game”, payment systems are hurdles to overcome to help the market grow. It is getting better, but is still slow.

More interestingly, I actually think digital environments are one of the solutions to a real social problem. With neighborhoods disappearing and the prevalence of the “car” or “commuter” culture, we, as social beings, are very isolated, constantly in contact with vast numbers of strangers. The beauty of online environments – and they can be text-based, 2D, 3D, Stereoscopic and what not – is that those spaces – and I call them spaces in an architectural sense – can help us create new neighborhoods.

Some of you might be familiar with the concept of “third place” – the collection of places aside your home and workplace. Those are often essential to us to be social, creative and enjoy our life. A city with lots of them is very enjoyable to live in. What I am looking for – and working on with the company Cmune as an early iteration of that – is the creation of those “digital third places”. Second Life has been a great inspiration and raised awareness to a very high level, but is limited on many aspects: the business model, the clunkiness, the client install and more generally the poor social design and lack of “fun”. I am looking forward to seeing the next generation of services tackle those challenges and enrich our lives with old and new experiences in digital places.

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+8* | Plus Eight Star believes in a better future online, as proven by Asia. Follow us at @plus8star or @benjaminjoffe for more.

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