Re: The Fourth Screen

enguyen — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:44:01 -0000

I agree and disagree.

On the one hand, I agree that having the Internet everywhere may just create mobile pockets of isolation, rather than the social interactions that were shown in the ad. True, the revolutions occurring with the "third screen" are bringing community back to the world. New business models and applications like social networking and crowd-sourced information collection have taken a lot of time and attention away from the broadcast style of the first two screens. But those communities are virtual.

On the other hand, we really don't know how much mobile devices will bring people together in the real world. There are quirky examples like alternate reality games and flashmobs that have demonstrated how real-time virtual connection can manifest in location-based, physical interactions. But these are just the beginning. What happens when everyone is permanently connected to the cloude with devices that sense where they are and what's around them? Remember that the internet was personal home pages animated gifs for ten years before Web 2.0 happened. And there's plenty of money behind making the Fourth Screen happen.

P.S. And, beyond these points, there's the disappearing line between the virtual and physical. At the eventual extreme, the "fourth screen" is really just your own five senses, putting whomever and whatever you want in your presence. Between now and that time, there's just

As Bruce Sterling says, "the idea that the virtual is somehow philosophically separate from the actual: it's a period notion. it's done." Watch this, if you want more: http://www.vimeo.com/769193

Re: The Fourth Screen

benchun — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:50:46 -0000

I'm not sure if I buy that people are "going back out into the world" with their devices in quite the way that people did before the first screen emerged. What I mean is that in watching those clips of early cinema, I'm struck by how people socially interacted before cinema was common, I'm struck by the sense that everyone was much more... together? Is that the right word? Not united, but just sharing more common daily experiences and common mediated context. There was so little of it! I could be romanticizing or misrepresenting history, but it felt like there was more conversation between strangers and more interaction.

Even watching those visions of a flying car taking off, you see a throng of people around it as it rises, grouped in a way that you don't feel at airports now where everyone is plugged in to their own iPod, ignoring everyone around them unless a transaction is required. So are we really coming to deeply human world if we're all staring into these little screens as we walk around? Or, what can we do to create a place where people are more open, more talkative, less isolated, less connected-at-a-distance and more connected to the present moment and place? I don't think cell phones (as much as I love/rely on them) are the answer to that question.

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