“The Machine Stops”, is a dystopian short story published in 1909 ago by EM Forster (free here) laying out a future where a segment of human society becomes terminally dependent on machines. Humanity loses both its capacity, and will, for a life free of technological augmentation. The highest form of existence is sitting alone in a self-contained, underground room connected to the rest of humanity only through the machine. Ideas and thoughts are valued over first hand experiences of the real world.
Tempting, as it is, to generalise and join the hordes of well intentioned late adopters in claiming that the internet is incrementally isolating us, it might be worthwhile taking a look at what is actually happening around us.
In the same way that transport enabled us to engage more with unseen worlds, online communities are enabling us to engage with people located around us. Location-based applications are just beginning to make their way into our mental frameworks.
A hint of the near future of human engagement was evident at SXSW Interactive this year, where location based applications such as Foursquare and Gowalla began to reach critical mass adoption. With a location enabled mobile device individuals began “checking-in” at various venues, notifying friends and, often, strangers of their location. Up to 200 people were checked in at some locations.
On top of these platforms, strangers are beginning to be connected by matched attributes such as “I’m interested in mobile tech”. Pairwise.mobi was an application built by a two man team in 48hrs on thestartupbus.com which did exactly this.
In the same way that we have somehow miraculously become both comfortable speaking to complete strangers and desensitised to exhibitionism on Chatroulette.com, we will soon be more comfortable with these applications introducing us to relevant but complete strangers that happen to be sharing a venue.
This may well be the “threads of self-denial” referred to be EM Forster, but until technology advances to the point that virtual engagement becomes indistinguishable from physical engagement, we have an opportunity to take advantage of a new era of location-based serendipity.
Do you see potential, or do you think location-based apps are overhyped?
on Apr 10th, 2010 at 6:28 am
You'll find that Dodgeball (by the Foursquare founders, acquired by Google) actually had this feature – it would introduce you to friends of friends if you checked into the same bar by sms.
on Apr 10th, 2010 at 8:41 am
Hmmm, interesting. I suppose now with a network of users to make it work it won't be long. Passive location updating on iPhone OS 4 will no doubt help push this.