The Bubble People

Many welcome the ability to telecommute, talk from a keyboard and avoid all kinds of social engagements and as a result, face to face communication is quickly dying. The reason is that we are more and more comfortable living in a designer bubble that provides all of our comforts with very few of the discomforts that come with social engagement.

Social interaction used to be like getting on a bus where one could never really be sure who would be travelling with. There is everyone from the people on the way to work to the stinking drunk guy who slept on the back seat last night. Most don't like the thought of being stuck with unknowns.

However, this retraction from interaction into a designed environment comes with a large narrowing of experience factor and if one is not careful, ending up in a thick-walled echo chamber is the result.

We are increasingly tailoring our lives to adhere to what we think we want to experience and we are also having it tailored through a myriad algorithms that aggregate and disseminate information they think we would like to see or, they want us to see. The better they get at targeting our desires, the narrower our wants become and the bubble shrinks further.

Previously, our experiences were much more organic and information was more likely to be chanced upon rather than fed. Much of this information came through relationships that themselves were serendipitous in their formulation. A stranger at the bus stop, or a conversation with a sales assistant were sources of inspiration of thought and motivation for curiosity.

The other factor that was heavily in play was the social ability was higher as there was more random socialising taking place to practice. It is a testament to the bubbling of society that reality television is scripted and social media is largely a stream of soliloquy into the ether.

Our social skills are degrading at an alarming rate and with it, one of the core benefits of socialisation, the introduction of diversity. Just like how our genetics strengthen through a wider range of gene diversification, ideas develop in much the same way. The wider variety of information flow brings competition of thought.

With a variety of conflicting information being brought into our eye line and without the ability to immediately switch off, we are much more likely to listen, engage and discuss. And if we are face to face, we are much, much less likely to have normal conversations devolve into name-calling and personal attacks in the way many online arguments head.

This exposure to varying forms of randomised information plays a critical role in our creative abilities also, as it breaks the homogenisation of our thought patterns and introduces static into the system. To remove the noise, we need to realign the antennae which means a negotiation must take place between what we currently hold and the new.

This means that we have a greater chance of shifting our personal paradigms and creating more suitable solutions to the problems we may face. It also means that we have a better chance of understanding a range of different ways and accepting that even if it does not work for us, doesn't mean there is no value for someone else.

When we close ourselves into our bubble, we feel safe and secure as it is like a informational clean room where no germs can get in to make us ill but, like a person that must actually live in such a place, the immune system becomes infirm and even mild challenges to the system can wreak havoc.

Through casual observation, I recognise many that apparently spend very little time outside of their bubble and generally it is easy to see as when their thoughts are challenged, their emotions bounce quickly into play. Before any consideration happens, they are already defending against an attack. It is like an overactive immune system at work but it is fighting a common cold.

What I find is that those who have higher real-world social abilities also have the presence of mind and emotional control to be able to discuss essentially any topic without getting flustered. Even when they are uncomfortable with a topic, they can still participate or choose to withdraw from the discussion without outbursts. It is a skill developed through social maturity.

When people are interacting from behind a screen, the anonymity it affords means that all kinds of behaviours can come out to play without having a social modifier. It is like a child allowed to choose whatever they want to eat, all day, every day. It is going to wind up with an unbalanced approach that hasn't built the understanding to choose well or that the upset feeling is self-inflicted.

So much of the technology these days is centered around personal experience which means a a further detachment from the social groups. Rather than making people more individualistic, it actually creates that feeling while delivering similar content to all. We end up living in our individual bubbles thinking we are unique yet are largely copy pasted people. Bubble People.

Getting out of the bubble is actually easy and hard simultaneously. It is easy because all one need do is socialise more broadly, it is hard because we are continually being driven towards social isolation. And our ability to interact well has suffered.

A large part of many of our current issues is that we are continually talking past each other across a wide range of topics that would be relatively simple to begin correcting with good communication. Good communication for sensitive and conflicting views however can't be learned by only talking with and consuming from agreeable sources. We need randomness and discomfort.

It is that randomness that introduces new ides and the discomfort that helps us realise that psychological and emotional discomfort is nothing to fear, actually, it is how we evolve to create a better experience.

As they say, 'Get out of your bubble'.

Taraz
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