PowerPoint Module 1: INTRODUCTION

I would suggest that for all the PowerPoints you put two panels up: one with the PowerPoint, the other with the module commentary—that way you can use it as a narrative.  I will be providing some verbal commentary, but key will be the text.

Look through the first 4 slides—the “What We Know” set.  Look carefully at the numbers—flash back to ancient history [year 1998]–remembering that none of this existed when you were in Kindergarten [and for those of you slightly older while you were in Elementary School].  What we take as normal has existed for a stunningly SHORT period of time.

This has huge implications as we’ll see during the semester.  The main one has to be that we [collectively and individually] have had no time to process these changes into our social world and fit them into our existence.

In the past technological changes were usually been single points, like the telephone 100 years ago—so the process is a lot less disruptive.  But the myriad of changes we are currently bombarded with, without any breaks or time-outs, has led to massive social disruption—witness the polarization in the U.S. related to the recent election cycle, “false news”, mistrust of traditional media, etc.

At a personal level, think of the lack of any clear etiquette guides on appropriate use of phones/social media on dates—is it OK to text while going out with someone?  Check on their social media posts?  If they leave it lying around unlocked, check to see who/what has been tweeted or snapped recently?  All this is symptomatic of people being increasingly at a loss as to whether the digital is their friend, their enemy, or their nightmare—or more likely all of the above at the same time.  Individuality and freedom are interesting concepts, and are central to those who drive social media usage, but at what price?  If you want to see a fascinating discussion on this, look at Gershon’s “Break Up 2.0” (which looks at social media and failed relationships).

We are most connected population in world history.  We also look like we are becoming the loneliest—scroll down to the Facebook specific slide and think about what all that implies on something that didn’t exist 15 years ago.

2^nd Set: Basic Premises Slides—these present the set of assumptions central to our examination of the digital world.  All of the assumptions this semester are based on the data presented here—of course all of this is constantly morphing since the subject is constantly moving in new directions.

A very central assumption here is the shift from synchronic—say a face-to-face conversation or a phone call, towards a-synchronic interaction—such as a tweet or a post.  A lot of the research suggests that rise in loneliness, drop in social engagement and narcissism are being linked to this shift towards a-synchronic interaction.

One author made s very good point—the attraction of a-synchronic interaction is that you get to look over how you self-present, check out how you look-sound before hitting “send”.  You can filter out the bad-embarrassing pieces and so present your ‘best’ self to the world.  But then authenticity becomes ambiguous.  When you combine this staging with private-becoming-public, the need to present your best self is really critical with re-tweets, likes and forwards, so you end up in a feedback loop where the idea that you may be seen by a number of people you don’t know really puts pressure on image and presentation.  It all becomes public presentation; gone is casual conversation.

There was just an article yesterday in Think Google (their analytic-marketing branch) looking at how search was replacing friends as the main source of decision-making input [At <thinkwithgoogle.com>, the blog is titled “It’s all about me”].

A fascinating aspect of this which has gotten almost no research (to date) has been the replacement of voice with text, especially when you remember we are lugging around smart PHONES.  This is NOT a technological issue—it’s a reflective of individual/collective choice.  When you combine this with the huge growth in selfie videos (Snapchat, Facebook…) [again, a-synchronic] we are back to imaging and interaction choices that people are choosing to make.

All of this leads to the ‘Blind Men and the Elephant’ cartoon [pulled from Google] as a parable about the difficulty of making sense of our digital world.

Keep the following questions in mind as we travel through this semester:

Is technology (both hardware and software) causative—something that forces social change—such as Facebook?  If so, what are the effects or impacts?

Or is it just a reaction or indicator?  Are these changes driven more by our own wants and needs (individually or collectively)?  If so, why this effect or impact?  What triggered it?  Where is it going?

How does it impact individuals?  The collective?  The social group?  What does it say about individuals?  The collective?

OK, now apply all this—do the Hatsune Miku assignment.  Use the Critical Thinking factors while you watch this video.

The last set of slides were pulled from a very sophisticated presentation—he did a very good job of showing some of the potential unplanned consequences to new technology, so look them over—I think you’ll find the analysis interesting.

 

PowerPoint Module 1A Definitions-Concepts

SET UP THE MODULE 1A POWERPOINT UP WHILE READING THIS SO THAT YOU CAN MOVE BACK AND FORTH

As you work through this slide set, you should notice that most of the terms are in common use—one of the main purposes of this set is to clarify and specify what the terms mean.  A good example would be CULTURE—used (and misused) all the time, but we want to keep to the narrow professional definition.  Note the built-in tension—on one hand all cultures are innately conservative, as people teach the young generation based on their past (“when I was growing up…”)—but at the same time cultures are constantly in a state of change, as conditions and the larger world change.  This can be seen with the discussion about “proper phone etiquette” and other aspects of social media.  Do old social norms/rules apply to new technology, or does new technology demand new social norms?  Who says?  Who decides?  Who has to follow the rules?

Note how dominant PERCEPTION is to all this discussion.  ETHNICITY is perceived—there are no strict criteria needed to be ‘ethnic’, just the 2 factors.  The same is true of COMMUNITY.  A lot of our quickly-changing world is based on what appears to be consensus, but again, consensus of whom?  Who’s left out?

Second Life is an excellent case in point, if you’ve started reading Boellsdorff—there are fairly consistent social norms in SL, but the program is only 14 years old, and most residents have only been in-world for 1 year or so.  So how did the norms develop?  How do new members learn the norms?  Why do they follow them?  What are the consequences of breaking them?  This is the central part of his study of Second Life, and applies to much of Digital Realities.

This brings us to the first of our Critical Thinking questions:

CT 1= LIVE CONCERT:

Is music more real is you hear it at a live concert with a live band? [live band, live audience, real time venue]

Is it just as real at a Hatsune Miku concert where the band is live, but the song and singer are digital? [digital singer, live backup band, live audience, real time venue]

Is it less real (how much) if you watch the Hatsune Miku LA concert grabbed by phone on youtube? –[at https://youtu.be/8_9X5wjJ7N8?t=1429]

 

CT 2= Trance State Clubbing:

You and some friends go out to a club featuring a famous Trance-mix DJ.  You find yourself dancing and so caught up in the music, especially the beat, that you start to forget where you are.  You haven’t had much to drink, and no drugs.  All the sudden you find yourself dancing with a rather cute [kawaii] pink elephant.

What part of this experience is real?

What part isn’t real?

-SHARE YOUR ANSWERS TO THE KOAN ABOVE AS A REACTION PAPER-

Part 2: REALITIES:  As you thought over the paradoxes above you should have had to separate the “real” from the “unreal”.  It seems straightforward until you look at your world and how you interact with others, and then it gets complicated real quick.

Thinking of your assignments so far, draw a diagram that shows what you consider the overlap to be between physical and digital reality.

Now add in virtual worlds; virtual reality; augmented reality

Where does a Hatsune Miku concert fit in your diagram?

Doing a Google Hangouts or Skye session with our classmates?

VIRTUAL REALITY has become the hot topic in tech circles in the last 3-4 years, especially with Facebook’s purchase of the Oculus Rift VR system.  When a large number of people will be willing to stick headsets on for extended periods of time remains to be seen, especially because at it’s core VR assumes opposition to physical reality—so the two have to be isolated from each other.

 

By contrast AUGMENTED REALITY [key player is probably Microsoft Hololens] overlays physical reality with digital aspects—a Hatsune Miku performance is augmented reality.  This Hololens review gives a good idea of current thinking [at: https://youtu.be/NwY-6sQDYnk?t=539] which discusses the differences between AR and VR.

The VR-AR Koan is looking at this dividing line—in your view which one is personally more compelling?

 

PowerPoint Module 1A Definitions: Part 2

Apps and Avatars:

Think for a second about a “free” app you use—whether it be Facebook, YouTube, whatever…  At some point they have software coders and designers, a ton of expenses relating to digital storage, web development, customer service…  If you’re using the “free app”, then who pays the bills?

This is the term MONETIZE—to come up with a way to make something generate money—to make it pay for itself (and show a profit).  This is why there are banners and side-bar advertising in Facebook, pop-up adds in your video on YouTube, etc…  These are all ways to pay the bills.  What is more subtle is the collection of all your personal data—the infamous “big data” that is such a hot topic in biz tech circles.  Many Apps, from the moment you clicked the “I agree” when you first downloaded the App, collect everything that you put on your device–texting, pics, checking websites, online purchases…  You might only use the app to text or send pics (say Snapchat), but their data collection is going on all the time your phone/tablet/computer is on, not just when you’re using the app.  This is “data mining” and it’s a very lucrative business.  You see it in the very targeted adds you see.

This brings up the second concept, to COMMODIFY.  This has been a ‘hot button’ topic here in Hawaii for generations, especially related to tourism.  If you market “aloha”, but you do so to make sales, or get a tip, you have placed a cash value on both the term and the attached behavior and/or value.  In fact the larger discussion of service tips and the fact that they have become largely involuntary in many industries in the U.S. is the same issue.  If generosity is given cash value, are you being generous because you morally-socially should, or for the cash?  Who decides?  For social media Apps to be successful today they not only have to find out a way to monetize their service—but they also have to do so while making the App appear “free” to the end user.

But if they want to stay around they need persistent use and growth and this usually involves the commodification of behavior in some way.  The more they can make the App a social necessity, the more ways to make money off of it—not only for them, but also for selected users.  Miller talks about this with Facebook users who have made Facebook their business.  This is a common pattern in Second Life, when commodification of a range of objects, behaviors, and other things have become a full-time job for a number of residents.  The last two panels—the “like” button and like vs. want are views of this shaping of behavior by profit-driven companies.

Since you will be wandering around Second Life, the VIRTUAL WORLDS concepts will become pretty obvious—though as we will see later, that can sometimes seem like the tip of a very large iceberg of hidden social identity and meanings.  A real key concept to keep in mind both while wandering in Second Life, but also in the larger context of how you present yourself in social media such as Facebook or Instagram, would be that of the AVATAR.  As we will see, the minute that you make communication asynchronous, you are in the business of ‘avatar-building’, as you are able to share how you are presented to the digital world—you have the ability to shape your image.

 

PowerPoint Module 1B: History

There are two main takeaways from this set of panels:

• Notice the lack of clear relationship between technology and social change;
• The tremendous acceleration in technological change in extremely short periods of times—we move from changes over hundreds of years; down to changes in generations; down to changes in 2-5 years—the norm now.

Remember—when you were in Elementary School, you didn’t have Facebook because it wasn’t built yet.  You might feel like a dinosaur, but you’re not that old—it’s just that the changes are happening so fast.

Feel free to send in other contributions to add to this timeline, especially as they relate to social games, since that’s not an area I’m into or familiar with.

 

PowerPoint Module 1AB: Changing Social Patterns

AGAIN, HAVE THE POWERPOINT OPEN WHILE GOING THROUGH THE BLOG COMMENTS

JUMP TO PANEL 3—  don’t worry, we will get back to Slide 2 [self-ego diagram] at the end of this unit

Reaction Paper for Module 1AB Part 1:

Look over each line from Slide 3 [social change evidence] through Slide 5 [pervasive nature].  Ponder over a couple of critical thinking points on each, such as A) am I a part of this statistic and behavior?  B) how many of my friends and other people I work with are part of this group?

Then fast-forward to 2025—given these behavior patterns, how do you think our social patterns have changed by then (if at all)?

HOLD ONTO YOUR ANSWER

This apparent contradiction of massively increased social networking and increased individual perceived isolation is quickly becoming one of the major unanticipated consequences of digital media today.  While everyone accepts the data, predicting trends are all over the chart, generally clustering around the two nodes of “Tech is Good” and the opposing node of “Digital World of Doom”.  Ironically, both can be accused of reflecting the PERCEPTUAL BUBBLE definition—that of seeing and reinforcing a very particular point of view.

This same data-trend dichotomy can also be seen when you move on to Slides 6-7 [app gen specifics].  The older among you fall at the fringe of this group, the younger one are full in it, but the contingent right behind you—currently just starting High School, are full dues-paying members of the App Generation.

Reaction Paper for Module 1AB Part 2:

Use the same critical thinking points on each of the points in Slides 6-7, such as A) am I a part of this statistic and behavior?  B) how many of my friends and other people I work with are part of this group?  But this time only look at the “under-20” group.

Then again, fast-forward to 2025—given these behavior patterns, how do you think our social patterns have changed by then (if at all)?

As a finale when you send me the Reaction Paper, add the following—which of those stats/numbers did you find the least surprising?  The most shocking?

Keep your reaction as we will be refer back to this material constantly during the semester.

Finally, go back to Slide 2 [self-geo diagram]

This is a visual to help you understand the following concept-heavy post.

[If you want to see a very detailed discussion of this topic take a look at Mathews, Gordon  1996.  What Makes Life Worth Living?  How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds.  Berkeley: Univ. Calif Press.  This is also the central theme of post-1964 Americans in Twenge, Jean  2006.  Generation Me.  NY: Free Press.]

There are several paired opposing concepts that are central to understanding perception and self-identity.  One is internalized vs. externalized sense of self.  The other is group-collective self orientation vs. individual-self orientation.

Internalized Sense of Self: Your world view, self-identity, perception of what you are, your relationship with others and the world around you, are largely based on a set of parameters that you have developed internally.  From various sources, you have built up your unique sense-identity.  Normative in Japanese society, this is ikigai in Japanese.  There really isn’t a good English translation for the term.  In this framework you have only limited interest in how strangers view and/or judge you.

Externalized Sense of Self: Your world view, self-identity, perception of what you are, your relationship with others and the world around you, are largely based on how others view and react to you—the judgments they make of you.  Their external opinions are central to your self-identity.  The parameters you use for your world view and self-identity are largely the result of a compilation of the opinion of others—of external input.  In this framework you are extremely interested in how strangers view and/or judge you.

Group-Collective Orientation: Your sense of self and world view are largely driven by your group of association, the collective of those that are important to you.  Individual choice will take back seat to what the group wants.

Individual-Self Orientation: Your sense of self and world view are largely driven by your self-perception and identity, not that of the group or collective that is important to you.  Your individual choices are more critical than the wishes of others.

Thoughts for you to work on:

Where would you place yourself in this chart?

The Kardashians?  The Pope?  Why?

Where would you put a group that is consumed by the need to follow Facebook trends?  Why?

SOCIAL MEDIA DEPENDENCY: SOCIAL MEDIA PART 3

As mentioned in my earlier post [Social Media Part 2, March 2017], ‘social media addiction’ is now accepted by many social behavioral researchers, along with ‘internet addiction’ as more general category.  Internet addiction is now a listed behavioral disorder within the new DSM categories.  Kimberly Young is a key player in this area with a very interesting website (very lucrative also I suspect) at http://netaddiction.com/kimberly-young/.  A number of key figures in social/educational psychology have recently been looking at these issues, most famously Howard Gardner (one of the key figures in educational psychology) in his The App Generation (2013)—very good data-driven analysis.

We have a research group here at Chaminade University working on this subject with the goal of developing self-regulation/mindfulness strategies of higher education students (specifically folks like you at Chaminade).  Darren Iwamoto’s (Psych) research with CUH students indicates a major rise in students exhibiting high stress and anxiety levels—work which is reflected in similar studies globally.

Social media is at the center of this—go back and look again at the short video on this at https://youtu.be/HffWFd_6bJ0?t=1.

Our research group is looking at this issue within the framework of social media dependency as addiction has a number of not-useful stereotypes.  Social Media Dependency means that users need the social media interaction—without it they feel anxiety, stress, and other psychological and physiological (think dopamine) withdrawal symptoms.  As I note in the Social Media Powerpoints (5A-5C), this of course is the intent of the app makers, as they only make revenue if you are using the app.

We have working on a set of short Powerpoint training modules with the goal of sensitizing students (and others) about both the issues and also coping strategies.  We are using the ‘beta’ sets which I am sending out.  A number of them were designed specifically for a sit-down environment rather than the online, so you will have to look for supplemental support online.  YouTube has at least 1 million training videos on meditation (or so it seems) so there should be something out there that works for you.  These Learning Modules serve two functions: 1) they should help with mindfulness training, but 2) they are a key part of what we are specifically looking at in this class, the social impacts of the digital.

Remain Calm and Centered
SHIAI GEIKO

• Think of a rock in the ocean—still while water flows around it

 

• The rock is centered, calm—the water is energy, activity, noise
• If the rock gives in to the water, it gets washed away, out of control and at the mercy of the ocean’s random action
• The rock can take energy from the water [qi-mana] without giving control to the water
  

  Taking Control of Yourself
  SEME

• Clearing away YOUR demons
• TAKE THE INITIATIVE
• Place yourself in a control IN THOSE ITEMS YOU CAN SHAPE OR CONTROL

• Much of your world will be outside your control:
  • BUT you can still control YOUR REACTION TO IT
• Practice saying:
  • “NO, I’M SORRY I CAN’T” to requests from both inside yourself and from others

Situational Awareness
ZANSHIN

• Be constantly alert and aware of your surroundings
• Be ready to deal both with he unexpected and the predictable
• This will also help you empathize with others

Healing

• Pause in a quiet place and feel your fingers—what is your body trying to tell you?
• Breathing exercises
• Even out your breathing

Breathe from your lower diaphragm—move your stomach to breathe, not your chest

Advanced Meditation

• Remove distractions
• Sit or stand in a relaxed stance
• Imagine yourself Rooted to the ground
• Note your breathing
• Let yourself become aware of your surroundings
• What to you hear? Far away?
• What do you smell?
• What do you feel on your skin?

What is the quality of light that you see?  What colors?  What movement?

Self evaluation

• What has worked for you?
• Why did it work—how was it useful?
• What hasn’t worked for you?
• Why didn’t it work?
• Build on your successes: what other approaches may work for you?
• How can you modify the successes to make the whole a better fit for your needs and goals?

• Konane was not elitist—everyone played it, all the time
• In konane who takes the most pieces is irrelevant–you win by making your opponent powerless, not by conquering (as in chess) or destruction (as in checkers).
• The complexity of konane is in the control of paths through space: this makes it radically different than chess, which is basically a wargame, or checkers
• The look and feel of the board and pieces reflects the importance of all the senses
• My personal set is seen below: the white are turbo shell operculums from Hawaiian archaeological sites; the black are waterworn stones from Kahikinui Maui beaches
• 
• The Hawaiian world view is dominated by dualism—every aspect of existence has an opposite
• In konane the contrasting sets of pieces and their relationship (visually) with the board reflects this principle
• Konane pieces must contrast both in texture and color
• Konane boards varied in size from 6×6 rows up to 15×12 rows; the most common patterns were 7×6; 9×7; 9×8; 9×9; 11×10; 12×11 and 14×11
• The board below is made from mango.  Notice how two different sets of pieces look on this wood, in contrast to the bamboo or mahogany boards in the other pictures.
• 

Konane Rules

• All pieces are laid out in alternating order
• Black player starts—must remove one piece at the board center [see below]
• White player then removes one piece next to the missing black piece [see below]
• Black then moves and so on
• All moves are in a straight line, NO diagonals
• You can NOT change direction during a move—straight line only
• In each turn you MUST huli [hop over] at least one of your opponent’s pieces—which is then removed.  You DO NOT have to make multiple huli if you don’t want to
• You cannot move through empty spaces, nor can you jump over your own pieces
• The 1st player who can’t huli looses [immobilized]
• White below still has several moves (huli) possible, black does not–black has lost

• 

The Avatar as the New Self

If you’ve watched the Facebook April 17 presentation on Facebook Spaces [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/04/facebook-spaces/], their now functional virtual social world, then the concept of the avatar should come to mind.  That Facebook sees avatars as the new platform for social communication and dialog is telling on a number of levels.  If nothing else, it should certainly reawaken interest Second Life and its new version Sansar.

 

But at a more basic level it brings us back to the whole issue of realities and the increasingly artificial distinction between physical reality, social realities and digital realities which we’ve looked at this semester.

 

In the traditional (say pre-1995 w0rld), physical-social reality were cohesive and intertwined.  Your individual sense of who and what you were (your internalized self) was largely driven by the input of others.  Identity and image were largely a result of externalized forces.  Self-expression and self-identity were constrained by the demands and expectations of others, and the internal ego was largely limited to art and literature (diaries anyone?).  The sense of being “trapped” by the demands and expectations of the ‘real world’ were dominant.

 

In the contemporary early 21^st century world social reality has moved into the digital and has largely become divorced from physical reality.  They now compete for time and attention.  Given the asynchronous nature of social media, this has allowed the growth of self-identity into social reality.  Your individual sense of who and what you are now drives how you image and present yourself in social media, and how others perceive you.  Identity and image are now largely the result of ego-based choice.  Given the essentially limitless ability to find a group of like-minded people to support you, you can find public acceptance of who you want to be seen as.

 

But the digital is not the same as the physical.  Being part of a group and social network doesn’t mean you have anyone to hang out with at the beach, go drinking together–all those activities which require physical co-presence.  With the increasing popularity of Augmented Reality platforms, the need for physical co-presence may become less of an issue.   You can interact with your physical surroundings while interacting digitally–digital co-presence without physical co-presence.  The implications for group membership, group identity, relationships–all these will change as technology continues to impact on our social lives in changing ways.

 

Social interaction, social identity and realities in general are changing.  Into what is the question.

VIRTUAL REALITY-AUGMENTED REALITY

Multiple Modes to Reality-Virtual, Augmented Reality

This will be our last topic of the semester so it’s only appropriate we look at the emerging realities—the immersive, but isolating virtual reality of Oculus Rift (including the Samsung system in my office you can check out) or the augmented reality seen in the Microsoft vid a couple of weeks ago.

In both cases the goal is to replace the screen-keyboard experience of the PC (or game console/phone) with something more portable, more attuned to normal movements such as hand gestures.  Virtual reality systems by definitions must be immersive since their goal is to replace reality with a digital reality.  This has been the dream since Star Trek’s holodeck (see nice Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodeck) .  In VR the user is immersed in the digital reality, theoretically with all senses being equally functional as in the real world.  However in contemporary tech this involves a isolated headset with screen.

As Castronova, Yee and others have noted in work on games and Second Life, the brain quickly assumes what it senses is real.  It is quite common for people to get motion sickness while in VR headsets.  The bulk and control-interface issues keep VR on the fringe, though Facebook has sunk a huge sum of money into VR as the new platform for social media.  A good example of VR can be seen in the Steam vid at https://youtu.be/qYfNzhLXYGc?t=4.  Note the isolation from reality.

By contrast, augmented reality (AR) uses projection to place aspects of digital reality into physical reality.  A good example would be the recent Microsoft Hololens HoloTour demo vid https://youtu.be/pLd9WPlaMpY?t=2, with an excellent summary in the ColdFusion vid https://youtu.be/NwY-6sQDYnk?t=9.  As ColdFusion notes, it is intentionally designed with reality integration as a goal.  Having said that, note that in both cases they want to move you from reality to the digital form.  Given the huge $$$ being poured into this, robust functional versions are likely by 2019 (as in commercially available).  This leaves several questions, not the least is what will happen to the smartphone makers as phones disappear.  Again note that this fits well with the Microsoft demo vid we saw before [https://youtu.be/w-tFdreZB94?t=6].  Note the lack of any phone, with flextablets as work spaces.

Whichever technology, the issues of addiction to digital forms and all the other issues we’ve seen this semester will be amplified.  We will discuss the potential for amplified stress points in our last Hangout session Wednesday—think back to the Catfishing episode and online dating—and now mix that in with the Steam and/or Microsoft demos–how does that change the whole pattern of social interaction, with avatars?  Who would be the ‘real you’?  How big of a jump into a digitized version of “Surrogates” [https://youtu.be/UGwQ74cH5O0?t=7] ?  See you on the other side.

MMORPGS: THE LONG-TERM SOCIAL IMPACTS?

If you look at the MMORPG powerpoint you will see several points that drive this post.  A number of studies show that social interaction in gaming is central to the experience.  This can be more important than other aspects of the game world, or conversely awkward social interaction design can doom an otherwise attractive game world.

But while MMORPGs share this desire with social interaction with the more free-form social virtual worlds (such as SL), they are (unlike SL), very structured, controlled virtual environments designed by a development company.  All aspects of the gaming world, such as goals, images, dialog and almost every other aspect of the experience are programmed by the company who built the MMORPG.  In this way they are different from the more fluid social virtual worlds such as SL.

This can be seen in the quote from Yee’s work: “Online games are like school in many ways.  Both provide predefined rewards for a set of highly constrained and objectively measured activities… Wherever you are in the education treadmill, you know exactly where you are, where you’ll be next, and how to get there.  For about sixteen years of our lives, this is the model of progress we are all taught.  And then we’re let loose into the real world, where these rules go away.  Goals are no longer defined for you.  Performance in many jobs has no clear objective measure… The real world is tough, and it’s often unfair.

Not so in online games.  Everyone who kills the evil bandit gets the same amount of experience points.  Goals are clear, predefined, and fair.  Your achievements are displayed in a multitude of easy-to-read progress bars.” (Nick Yee Proteus Paradox 2014: 34-5)

Yee also notes that this structure—of a predictable progression leading to clearly defined goals—can be very attractive compared to the chaotic nature of reality.  As Bauerlein notes, digital media can encourage self-directed and self-centered attitudes, especially in the 10-25 age group.  Rather than larger social networks, this shrinks into a smaller group sharing common experiences.  His argument is based on digital reality in general rather than gaming specifically, but he sees gaming as being a factor with some groups.

This brings us to one of the biggest fears of digital gaming–that of the gamer turning into “otaku”, of someone who is so consumed with their digital realm that it starts to play a dominant role in their real existence.  Or at it’s most extreme, the “hikikomori” who basically removes themself from much of reality to spend the majority of their time in their digital world.  Both these concepts have been around in Japanese society for the last several decades, with hikikomori coming to more general attention in the last 15 years [feel free to google both and see what you get]. [Remember your earlier reading].

Note that this shift in real-world social engagement (or shifting orientation) is very different than the older concerns about gaming as a trigger for anti-social behavior [including in SL terms, ‘griefing’].  This has been around since pinballs in the 1950s but grew in volume with the growth of gaming consoles in the 1980+ period.  As the gaming media has shifted, and as the quality (especially visual) has improved, the concerns have grown, despite the lack of compelling evidence to show a clear correlation between explicit anti-social games and real-world anti-social behavior.  A current example of this issue can be seen if you google “gaming addiction”, an example being at this website= http://www.techaddiction.ca/computer_game_addiction.html

The issue of gaming addiction [more accurately gaming compulsion] is treated very seriously in Asian societies, in part due to the heavy expectations placed on 10-25 age group to fulfill family and social expectations.  So anything that gets in the way of academic success is treated harshly.  This can be seen in the documentary on gaming addiction intervention at https://youtu.be/uOm5aXXjzzM?t=11.  This can also be seen in a number of articles such as the one by Li et al (2012) “Effects of Digital Game Play Among Young Singaporean Gamers” JVWR 5:2 Sept. 2012).  A common thread to most of these is the escapism/irresponsible wasting of time, rather than the projection of gaming violence into the real world.

It’s of interest given our topics that gaming addiction is seen as a much more troubling phenomena socially than social media addiction.  In your view, why?  This will be one of our topics in the next Hangout session.

From a functional standpoint, MMOs are fascinating as they are one of the most successful of the financial forays into online social engagement.

The earlier model of social gaming worlds would be the subscription model (Everquest, World of Warcraft, EVE…) where you pay a fee to enter and play the game.  Given that MMOs are incredibly expensive to develop (same as a high-end Hollywood movie—60-90 million USD), and there is the cost of maintaining the system (upgrades, control) they needed a robust guaranteed means of income.

With increasing Web 2.0 access a second model has grown and now dominates much of the market—that of “free to play” but to save/enhance/progress in the game it involves payment.  This coincides and has been driven (in part) by the growth of portable (phone) gaming in contrast to the traditional PC.  The chance of catching a huge global market if popular (Minecraft anyone?) means that a new set of paradigms in game design grow up—graphics drop in importance, but other aspects of story or game play take precedence.

The need to design compatible cross-platform (phone-PC-console) versions that are all attractive and compelling puts even greater strain on game design companies, dramatically raising the costs of developing A new product.  Another developing threat is the independent development of games in APPs, which can be done by a small team for small cost (Forge of Empires is a good example).

This pattern has some analogies to popular music—the big labels vs independents—who wins ($$$), who loses is much less predictable than just 10 years ago. All of which increases the risk of MMORPG development dramatically.

Social Research: There have been several major areas of interest in the study of MMOs.  A few games (especially World of Warcraft-WOW) has been the subject of several ethnographic and sociological studies [Nardi’s 2010 My Life as a Night Elf Priest; Bainbridge’s 2010 The Warcraft Civilization; and Pearce’s 2009 Communities of Play].  All of these studies focus on the users (gamers) and their social dynamics.

There has also been a large but not coherent amount of research done on the social-psychological aspects of intensive gaming, much of it driven originally by concerns about the social impacts of playing very violent anti-social games (much of it around Grand Theft Auto in its various versions).

In another direction, work by Nick Yee and others on the Daedalus Project, studying gamers and gaming motivation [why to people play games and what do they want from a game] came up with interesting findings.  He has expanded this into a career with his company Quantic Foundry [http://quanticfoundry.com/] and with his 2014 The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us-and How They Don’t.

I would recommend that you go to the QF website and take their survey as they give you where you fit in the ongoing gamer motivation study.

Assignment: Please watch his recent presentation on YTube “Gamer Motivation Profile Findings” https://youtu.be/YZwiQd-0xqQ?t=6.

The last area of [very limited] study has been the cultural impacts on gaming—some of which Nick refers to in his presentation.  We will get into this more next week.

Remember the Hangout session Wed 12:30 where we will look at issues of motivation.  If you haven’t already, go back and watch the EVE vid clips I sent several weeks ago.

The Future of Virtual Social Worlds

The current development of 2^nd Gen social worlds seems to be moving in two very different directions.  Direction 1:  An updated-improved Second Life type experience, where the key is an open platform with the users/residents building most (if not all) of the in-world experience.  These will look a lot like SL, but faster, more robust, tablet-friendly…  They directly link to the existing SL model, with tweeks to enhance popularity, user numbers and also multiple revenue streams.  Key players here would be Sansar (by Linden Labs, the developers of Second Life) and Space.

Direction 2: New platforms driven by the ideal of social interaction in 3D, or the merging of virtual reality into social interaction.  This is less driven by the user creativity, and more driven by social interaction/”hanging out”.  These players would include High Fidelity (Rosedale, the original designer of Second Life) and Facebook (Zuckerberg’s team).  There is a lot more money in model 2, as this is also more complex but is also seen as the “next generation of social media”.

Note how both directions use the only robust, long-term example of social worlds, Second Life, as their model.  But they interpret very different futures—one on virtual world interaction, where much of the driving energy is based on digital landscape interaction; the other on social interaction with other people—or if you would things-places or people.

I would like a reaction paper on the following:

Take a minute to go think back through the Second Life material, and through your own experiences in SL.

IF someone was going to spend a couple of years and millions of USD$, what changes would be most attractive to drawing you in to use the APP—what would make a social virtual world attractive to you, a place for you to spend time, and for what purpose(s)?

You might want to go to YTube and look at the recent demos for these various platforms and see which ones, if any, you find more compelling than SL.  Remember that Facebook is gambling that within 3-5 years you will not be using your phone at all, but will be immersed in a virtual social APP.  When you have this first part done, go and look at the “Microsoft Future Productivity” video demo from 2015 at YTube= https://youtu.be/w-tFdreZB94?t=150 and see where this fits in.  I

should note that everything in the Microsoft video is around at least in beta form.  This will be your world in 2022 (or so)—what do you think of it?  How ready are you for it?

Part 1 [MODULE 7A-Virtual Worlds; MODULE 7AB SL Observations]

The division of virtual worlds into gaming vs. social is somewhat arbitrary, but i will argue that there are three major differences:

1) Second Life and most of the “new build” Social worlds [Space, Sansar and High Fidelity] are user-built.  Almost all items found in-world are constructed by residents, not by the owners of the world.  By contrast Gaming worlds are almost entirely constructed by the owners of the world, with resulting constraints on options to users.  If you want to, think of Second Life as being an expression of the Residents; gaming worlds such as Eve or WOW [World of Warcraft] are an expression of the owners of the world.

2) In-world economic systems in Social virtual worlds are largely user-user driven, with most economic transactions being of one user purchasing something from another user.  The owners of the world get revenue from a combination of land rental fees and micro-transaction fees from the in-world revenue system (think a bank in RL where you have your checking account).  Gaming worlds usually charge a fee to progress in the game or to play it at all (WOW for example).

3) Social virtual worlds do not have goals, and individuals don’t compete with each other to gain/win something—there are no challenges per se.  By contrast Gaming worlds are built on the concept of competition (hence ‘gaming’ worlds) so they tend to be programmatic, sequential and competitive.  They almost invariably have some storyline, which includes paths through which all players share.

What they have in common is the social aspect—all successful Gaming worlds have found that social interaction (and frequently cooperation) are central to the popularity of the APP, and the most durable have very strong social virtual communities which persist over long periods of time.  This can be seen in Pearce’s work on a group of players in the gaming world of Uru (think Myst) that migrated as a group to Second Life when Uru was closed [Pearce, Celia & Tom Boellstorff 2011 Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games].  The fact that this diaspora occurred is an indicator of how strong the social relationships in the supposedly fragile digital world can be.  Again, think back on the emotional impact of the Catfish episode we saw.

Look over the first Module (7A), a general one looking at some of the information on virtual worlds.  Then go through Module 7AB, which is basically a very short summary of the geographical research I did in Second Life several years ago.  Look at this data from the standpoint of a unique, long-term social digital world that has no gaming value or goals.