Apr 02 2007
What’s Next In Our Digital Culture’s Social Evolution?
This is a continuation of the post where I asked, “Who Will Be the Neanderthals In Our Digital Culture’s Social Evolution?”
The Neanderthals will be the Unplugged.
The Unplugged are those who are unable to use the available technology that is improving the chances of survival for everyone else. Technology is slowly replacing offline resources and like an animal’s disappearing habitat, the Unplugged will disappear once its environment can no longer support them.
Think about the services that are slowly disappearing and the jobs that are disappearing along with them: film processing, typewriter repair, encyclopedia sales, and custom printing.
The Plugged In are driving the demand for more online resources: they want more automation, less paper, fewer wires and little physical handling.
The Plugged In are pushing to merge their offline activities into their online world. What is happening is that people’s desire for offline-online integration is driving the technological innovation.
So what’s next in our Digital Culture’s Social Evolution?
John from Finding the Money wrote: “Web 2.0 is too disjointed right now to really have a digital self. Blogs, flickr, bookmarking, myspace, etc., can’t be combined in an elegant way to represent a complete person. But things are going that way.”
I believe that the next phase in our evolution will be the Personal Portal SE.
What is the Personal Portal SE (Social Evolution)?
Personal Portal SE will be the integration of a person’s blogs, photos, music, bookmarking, email, text messaging, schedule, current GPS coordinates and MyView.
The Personal Portal will allow various levels of access to each person’s life.
Access levels would work similarly to that used by networks:
Users: individuals who have been granted access to your Personal Portal. Users would be given user names, passwords and be assigned to Groups.
Group: a collection of user accounts. Members of a group would have all rights and permissions granted to the group.
Types of groups would be: Public, Business, Friend, Family, Intimate and Private
Levels of access from Low to High:
- Public: basic information about yourself such as that available via public records.
- Business: Email, work phone, schedule and possibly GPS coordinates
- Friend: personal email, home phone numbers, instant message IDs, GPS coordinates, personal calendar, blogs, photos.
- Family: Friend level access plus internal phone numbers, family photos, MyView (only available with Personal Portal SE Premium – a real-time cam that broadcasts what you are seeing).
- Intimate: Family level access plus possible access to accounts and bill paying services
- Private: only you have access
Do you agree with me? Do you think that Personal Portal SE (or something like it) will be the next stage in our digital culture’s evolution?
If it’s not currently in development…can you say, Startup Opportunity?
Creepy but probably. And are kids aren’t going to think twice about it.
Kristi said it all. Kids will be born into this new world and think nothing of having their life reflected in a Personal Portal SE, down to their GPS coordinates. Indeed, parents may want to know their kid’s GPS coordinates as a form of remote control babysitting.
Word processing programs often keep records of every change made to a document. JPG pictures contain the serial number of the camera that took the picture.
I have heard that Google keeps every search you ever made on their site. Just like your credit card statement, a list of your searches is a reflection of you. Those searches reflect your hobbies, finances, medical conditions, travel plans, etc. Creepy? Yes!
Kristi and Jake: Kristi brings up a very good point – children don’t think twice about giving out their personal information.
I have slowly allowed much of my private information to be available online. When ATMs first came out, I didn’t use them. I was uncomfortable with not dealing with a person. But the busier my life became, the more convenient ATMs were. Ditto online banking. I travel so much I may not be home in time to pay bills.
Many businesses are trying to move as many services online as they can. There is also the fact that you can save money by buying things online and business encourage this by offering free shipping.
The Personal Portal will be difficult to avoid – people are pushing for it and marketers will seduce us with its convenience.
It’s a very interesting thought to have: What will be the next step in our digital culture’s social evoution? To put it even more bluntly, ‘What will be the next step in the evolution of humanity’s collective social consciousness?
Over at Blogspoke I’ve been talking a little bit about why and how blog ‘conversations’ can reach a depth of relationship and focus that face-to-face interaction often can’t reach. ‘Blogging sure beats talking to your face.’
http://www.blogspoke.com/page/blogspoke?entry=blogging_sure_beats_talking_to
It’s funny that you ask this question because it realtes to what I was planning on writing about next. Many people think that the next step in evolution for humanity as a community is to take the 3-D virtual world like in ‘Second Life’, and integrate it fully into everyday ‘real life’.
Communication, work, business, shopping, meeting people…emails, instant messenger, webcam, podcasts, avatars, blogs, forums, photos, bookmarking: One day it could all be done in one space that becomes so ‘real’ that it’s no longer deemed ‘virtual’.
My grandparents would argue that children are better off playing with other kids out in the fresh air, rather than spending their whole existence on a computer. I think kids are growing into a more integrated reality composed of multiple avenues for growth, and most probably they’re unaware of their programming. The key is to find a balance of these two aspects of modern life…the future depends on it.
As well as ‘real’ vs. ‘virtual’ world integration, we also have to ask about the integration of science and spirituality, looking outside ourselves, and looking within, if we want our future generations to evolve into a society that relates positively to both the world it comes from, as well as it’s fellow citizens in a peaceful and respectful manner.
Jesse: I am not sure I’d want a virtual world like Second Life integrated with my own but I can see how appealing it would be to many.
In fact, so many people prefer the fantasy! I think about how many people cannot accept aging or imperfections (with an ever-changing definition of perfection) and avatars and virtual lives will fill that void. It will present an interesting challenge for psychologists!
Perhaps people will chose avatars as a rite of passage.