WEEK 4 - SPACE: DIGITAL, VIRTUAL, REAL, HYBRID?

From Cyber to Hybrid – Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces

Adriana de Souza e Silva

An interfaced is not conceived as one, but becomes one when it’s embedded in day-to-day social practices. These are the ones that shape interfaces and reconceptualise them, making them be in constant adaptation to human behaviours. This is why mobile internet is born; internet and social networks have left the computer screens and started to adapt to daily lives, following the people outside and creating a digital-physical interface; a Hybrid Space. For this to happen, mobile pones have become micro-computers in order to serve their user in every aspect of their lives and in both private and public spaces; that means that technologies also have learnt to adapt depending of the cultural and socioeconomic factors as well.

“Hybrid spaces merge the physical and the digital in a social environment created by the mobility of users connected via mobile technology devices.”

One of the most important concerns to date of the digital media is the antisocial nature of it, decreasing the amounts of interactions a person is meant to have while living their lives. The feeling of entering this “digital reality” decreases when using the internet in a social and physical environment, not like computer screens. People are still being dominated by technology, but no longer feel that, because now they are surrounded by people and moving from one place to the other. They stopped conceiving virtual surfaces as a separate interface. Now they include the digital reality in their everyday activities. “Therefor, the borders between digital and physical spaces, which were apparently clear with the fixed Internet, become blurred and no longer clearly distinguishable”… a person can be judged when spending most of his/her day in front of a computer… but when someone tweets 20 times a day, is constantly connected to Facebook, BBM, Whatsapp and a bunch of different blogs that must be read 5 times a day; but still goes outside to do all those things… then it’s socially acceptable.

The most important thing to achieve this “mixed reality” is mobility. That’s one thing that manages to blur the borders between virtual and real. The other important factor (which is born from mobility but has become quite strong by itself) is augmented spaces. The feeling of technology surrounding us makes us feel more comfortable with the fact of always being connected. Mobile technologies become social devices that everyone has access to. This has led to a global and constant connection, which allows people to organize quickly through mobile phones or other platforms, multiplying the number of interactions per person in one minute, therefor making the city grow in terms of activity and productivity - “Socialize with peers who are nearby, sharing the same physical space, even if they are not at eye-contact distance.” – you can be talking to one person while texting someone else and sharing the same social network with someone else.

This change in the way of relating to people, has led to a change in the conception of spaces, which are no longer limited infrastructures, but are conformed by a net of mobile technologies, shaping a new space minute by minute. The sum of this spaces makes the whole city acquires a new meaning, transforming into an unknown environment that is in constant change and where anything might happen.

 *On the Urbanism of Locative Media

     Malcolm McCullough

“Even if the Internet does connect much of the world instantaneously, the word “cyberspace” now sounds dated.”

A few years ago, most of the online media activity, stayed in the cyberspace where it belonged, but today, all of the information that we upload is constantly being used by others and shaping the way we behave towards others and in our city.

Places have lost their infrastructure as people get more connected through the “cyberspace”. By the act of tagging, sharing, posting, etc.; brands and local businesses need to transcend their places of origin and become more of an interactive service that people should be able to carry with them in order to be remembered and shared. This metamorphosis happens not by appending from others brands and businesses, but by getting more connected with them. The more interfaces a brand is able to penetrate (by posts, tags, tweets, etc.), the more feedback (therefor, income) it is likely to get.

“If you can do anything, anytime, anyplace, then in a sense you are nowhere.”

The amount of information we receive in a limited space of time is immense comparing to our ability to process it. We are continuously bombarded by music, images, updates, etc. When our brain is trying to concentrate in getting something done, we have at least a dozen of distractions (or obligations) at the same time that prevents us from giving our 100% in one single task. By choosing to be connected all the time, we are sharing our time and space with hundreds of other people who demand constant information of our every move. But, as much as we try to fight this, it is this same constant connection that allow us to web searches, event site selection, on-board navigation, in-flight entertainment, environmental forecasting, freight logistics, a corn-maze craze, security lockdowns, flash-mob disobediences, tracking the family dog, etc.; so we are likely to continue making use of it. What used to be cyberspace has now become part of our context, that is our way of engaging with different situations. Without it, we are missing out on things and people around us, because all we have left is our five human senses.

*Example: FOURSQUARE

Foursquare, is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users "check-in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby. Location is based on GPS hardware in the mobile device or network location provided by the application. Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes "badges".

  

Foursquare awards you for visiting the biggest amount of places that you can in seven days. When people go to a coffee shop, or a restaurant, or a supermarket; their main concern is to do their check-in on foursquare to get it on their daily feed, maybe win a badge and let people know that they are there; not at home, and not alone. Foursquare puts pressure on their users to leading a more exciting social life, because everyone knows the places a user visits during the day, and can catalogue those places as cool or uncool. You can leave feedbacks and rate the places you visit, so that other people that uses the social interface have access to the information and decide whether to visit it or not.

 

If you check-in at a venue where other foursquare users are, the network will let you know, so that you both know that you are there. Sometimes you will know that person and will be glad to see the notification in your mobile’s screen… even though you could see the person if you just lifted your head; sometimes you won’t know who the person is, but still be glad that you have some company.