More In Person
If we’re looking at a vision of the future, it should actually involve more in-person interactions. These should be based on choice rather than on forced back-to-office protocols. In person, around other people, is something that we’ve been conditioned to for hundreds of thousands of years. We crave it and we slough into despair when it doesn’t happen.
Of course, I look through the lens of my on experiences and all of the most pleasurable experience in life have involved other people. Wait, maybe that wasn’t the direction I was going in… What I meant to say is that Zoom, in-game, vlogging and blogging and interaction with an audience, even interaction with celebrities and those who I admire, aren’t the same:
You got an email from x celebrity? Meh.
You met x celebrity? Wow!
You’re not going to Omegle your way out of a basement.
Back in university, one of the funnest experiences I can remember is a LAN party. It’s when a bunch of (self-reported) nerds would luck their desktops PCs, speakers and all, 20" cathode ray monitors, into someone’s home and play games like Team Fortress. I only had the patience (and social capital) to attend one but it was a blast. You didn’t need high speed Internet when everyone was on the same LAN.
While Tindr has scaled in-person meetups among strangers, there’s still room for doing it to help friends become more friendly. A potential anti-depressant regimen could include requiring a meetup with a friend in person — any friend — once a week for an hour. What about putting together a list of meetups int he coming month within the vicinity of your work or home?
While technology leads to more productivity, that productivity should lead to more leasure but the leasure shouldn’t be in screen based. Or at least there should be a hybrid aspect. This is an area of opportunity.
