Considering futuristic communication thing-gummies

I have been thinking it’s time to take a look at communication devices in Second Life. I tend to really like the Steampunk inventions first and shiny futuristic space age devices second. The thought behind this little examination of communication equipment is based on the idea that fact follows fancy. Who knows we may all be wearing the next fancy thing-gummy permanently attached to our bodies?  (No more dropping our smart phones down the loo.) Maybe we will be powering our own devices with our own body heat rather than causing them to stall with our sweat à la the iphone? The following photographs show the futuristic Holo Wristcomm created by Fenrir Reitveld.

Wristcomm provides a flip up virtual keyboard that glows in the dark (very useful)

A closeup of the Wristcomm. It's like wearing a netbook wrapped around your arm.

Wristcomm arm held at elegant angle while seated

Activating the Wristcomm's 'Danger' feature which (unlike the iphone) works under water

Unable to speak (underwater). Typing for help...

One observation to make, if you wear this device in a location where there is a lot of lag it keeps your arm locked up as though you are wearing a plaster cast. This reminded me of the prosthetic devices I have read about recently: Offbeat O&P–Prosthetic Finger Implanted with USB Drive and Eye-socket camera films from inside the head. Perhaps one day we will be able to get casts for broken arms that come loaded with MP3 players, IM, WiFi and direct links to facebook and Ebay?

Holo Wristcomm can be purchased from MechMind Industries in Hoodoo, Second Life.

Train station located at ImaginBoyzToyz, Second Life

‘Clear as mud…’ (Considering telephone conference calls)

A telephone conference takes all the participants’ voices and squishes them together. Ideas can be communicated and action steps decided etc, but later it’s really hard to recall who was who, and who said what during the call.

The joys of a conference call...

Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life gave a talk in April of this year to the Gronstedt Group in Second Life. During this talk he described his frustration with telephone conference calls:

“Think about when you are sitting at a meeting using a speaker phone, and you are staring at that speaker, and then after a while you become frustrated because you think; ‘Why am I looking at this stupid phone’, and you try to look at the other people but that feels really awkward, so you look at the ceiling. Then you kind of give up in frustration and maybe look back at the phone.”

Philip Rosedale then added that our brain localizes “the voices that it hears as being little tiny humans that are sitting somehow inside that phone… If there are multiple people at the end of your line your brain images them all as being trapped inside that little phone, and that’s really unpleasant because two people (or more) are right in the exact same space. When they are speaking to you from the same place… your brain has a hard time.” (Rosedale, 2009).

"...little tiny humans that are sitting somehow inside that phone…"

Philip Rosedale, Founder of Linden Labs. Gronstedt Group. Second Life.  April 2009. To hear more visit: http://www.gronstedtgroup.com/MP3s/Philip_Rosedale_Linden_Lab.mp3

(Post update: Friday May 29. Image showing tiny humans trapped inside phone added as a lacy kerchief wave to Dusan’s post titled Philipisms #7 – Get Those Tiny Humans Out of Your Head)

Social presence and skin deep reality

‘Rome is full of energy’ by elros Tuominen

Communication technologies have been created to help us overcome the physical separation of distance. The measure of the success of these technologies revolves around how much we can create a sense of immediacy, and closeness to each other (despite the miles between us). If we can understand just what makes up social presence then we can deepen our understanding of ourselves, our minds and each other. I define social presence as ‘how much we experience others as breathing, thoughtful, emotional beings with whom we might share some degree of empathy’. (There are far more intellectual definitions of Social Presence Theory, I have simply created my own definition to reflect those aspects of SPT that interest me personally as a virtual world traveller.)

Detail of light sculpture by elros Tuominen

The illusion of compressed distance does not necessarily equate with a comfortable sensation. I am thinking of a friend who described using voice in Second Life to chat to the avatar of someone who lived in another country. She said she felt as though the person behind the avatar was in the same room, and it was scary because she had no idea who the other person was in reality.

Perhaps, today’s sophisticated technologies sometimes feel too real and immediate? Heightened reality is not necessarily what we want in our communications nor does it automatically provide strong social presence. Seeing and hearing each other does not immediately produce mutual understanding, as we all know from face to face situations! It may even be the case that we desire a little distance from each other’s physical, and social presence, to experience each other’s essential self or ‘essence’? That is, we want to get past the distractions of real world, skin deep, appearances to reach each other’s (more genuine?) inner self. As it is, we can determine our appearance as avatars in virtual worlds, then adjust them to represent selected aspects of ourselves. We seek different levels of reality for different situations, and avatars perhaps become an emotional expression of self? Maybe this is the reason why people have more than one avatar? Each avatar reflects different dimensions of our personality and can be selected for different situations? (A rubric cube of selves?)

Ivory Tower Library of Primitives (textures display detail)

When business people are wheeling and dealing they tend to trust conservative clothing and want to glimpse the whites of each others eyes. (As though that conveys a more honest interaction?) But what’s this? Businesses are making use of Second Life as a communication platform to use for virtual meetings. How do they dress their avatars I wonder? (Do they have the added pressure of being ‘known’ in the real world and so will they be judged by their avatar’s appearance in the virtual world?)

There was an interesting discussion recently on SLED’s listserv about how avatars should dress to be taken seriously by those who are ignorant of virtual worlds. One idea put forward was that (when introducing Second Life to *Sluggles) people could dress their avatars in something akin to interview suits for such occasions! Others felt this was not the solution, as avatars are a form of self expression and people should stay true to themselves! This conversation thread was the result of the funny (but could have been much funnier) sketch about Second Life users on the Jon Stewart Daily Show.

Appearance in the virtual world is becoming more significant as the numbers of avatars increase. (And don’t forget the ‘augmentalist v immersonalist’ debate!) Our avatars are unique communication devices in and of themselves. They are created by us in Second Life (and other virtual worlds) and acquire unique features turning them into digitalized, yet strangely emotional, fingerprints of ourselves as we sit at our keyboards.

Neko avatar with butterfly wings and leopard skin spots in the grid!

At the same time as having their appearance constructed by us, our avatars become the medium of communication once we are inside our selected virtual world. Here we are, now able to mine down through layers of communication tools to end up with these personalized ‘speakers’. (The layers: personal computer via a modem; connects to a server; that runs a program; within which we create an individualized communication tool called an avatar; who can communicate with other avatars!) We talk about getting new skins for software applications, this metaphor of ‘skins’ comes full circle when we acquire virtual skins for avatars. The avatar becomes a personalized software device or communication application. Add into this picture the knowledge that, at this very moment, developers are creating ‘doors’ in virtual worlds which will enable us to walk from one virtual world into another using our personal avatars!

Maybe the next step will be to create avatar building software that has an embedded ‘degrees of reality’ dial in the preferences section? Then, according to our personal comfort levels, and different virtual environmental situations, we can adjust our avatar for any and every occasion in the metaverse!

Sluggles: Cyberloom’s description that borrows from J.K. Rowling’s ‘muggles’ to describe people who are ignorant or skeptical of how Second Life can be used as a communication platform.

Social Presence Theory & Second Life

Avatars dancing

Social Presence Theory (SPT) was developed by the social psychologist John Short (1976). He conducted examinations of different media to see to what extent users experienced each other as ‘real’ people (rather than just vague presences) at the other end of impersonal communication devices.

The intensity of our sense of the social presence of others depends on the particular media in use. This, in turn influences our behavior by how much we experience others as breathing, thoughtful, emotional beings with whom we might share some degree of empathy. When Short was first developing this theory he was largely pre-occupied with the influence of the telephone! Today, social presence is a term that pops up in the area of computer-mediated communications (CMC) and distance education.

Avatar closeup

So, how does Second Life stack up as a media form in terms of social presence theory? How does it compare to the phone, Skype or instant messaging? How much information can we gather together to feel a sense of social presence through our strange blinking avatars and IMs?

My new (but limited) understanding of SPT gives me the sense that the more we can add up a picture of each other, then the more comfortable we can potentially feel in the communication, and thereby with each other. The social presence ‘fragments’ we draw together tell us whether the other person is a sympathetic or an aggressive presence. The more information we can add up, the more we experience the social presence of each other, but in SL there is the added dimension on drawing these elements together through avatars. (A human representation of the media itself?)

Singed Angel dancing

These SL avatars can have an uncanny ‘human’ appearance. The avatar moves around as though it was alive, fidgeting, moving its eyes and adjusting its posture without you controlling these subtle movements. As you move around your computer screen your avatar studies your movements, following the trail of your thoughts as you move your mouse through on-screen menus. The avatar certainly seems to take on a life of its own.

Two avis chatting in a birdcage

One observation is that Second Life by-passes many of the natural reservations and constraints that we would have in ‘real life’. It intensifies communications and can convey a sense of ‘closeness’ with others through the use of avatars and text. SPT notes the fact that people select media for its degree of social presence and its particular suitability for the task they wish to accomplish. That is, we decide whether to meet, speak on the phone, or send an instant message depending on what we want to say and how we want to say it. Well, now we can add virtual reality and avatars to our list of media options. Second Life does convey a strong sense of social presence that readily puts people at ease. This is a peculiar phenomenon considering we are fully aware we are communicating via the artificial facial expressions and body language of avatars. Sometimes these avatars are striped tigers, exotically dressed humans or creatures that are part human and part animal (furries). Perhaps then, a large part of Second Life’s social presence is due to sharing the same joke?

Dance-pole tiger

Reference:
Short, J. Williams, E. Christie, B. (1976). The Social Psychology of Telecommunications. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. London.

External Link to this post:
Social presence theory – Wikipedia