Research question: To what extent can technology enhance human relationships?
Key word: technology/ intimacy/ future/ post-humanism/ enhance
Intro: In the recent century, developing technology poses a challenge to traditional culture or lifestyle, as well as society, the economic structure of the whole world, which is inevitable to a large extent. Therefore an increasing number of people are concerned about whether high-speed developing technology events have a positive effect on human society. The third revolution of science and technology Changes in machinery and analog circuits to digital circuits have occurred in various industries due to the popularization and promotion of computer and electronic data. This revolution has made traditional industries more mechanized and automated, reduced working costs, completely changed the operating model of the entire society, and created the computer industry, a high-tech industry. It is the most significant and most far-reaching scientific and technological revolution in human history, which has not yet ended. The first three industrial revolutions brought human development into an era of unprecedented prosperity. At the same time, it also caused tremendous energy and resource consumption, paid substantial environmental and ecological costs, and sharply expanded the contradiction between man and nature. In the 21st century, mankind is facing unprecedented challenges from the global energy and resource crisis, the global ecological and environmental disaster, and the global climate change crisis, which has triggered the fourth industrial revolution. The fourth industrial revolution was based on the emergence of cyber-physical systems. Cyber-physical systems combine digital technologies for communication with software, sensors, and nanotechnology. At the same time, the convergence of biological, physical, and digital technologies will change the world we know today. The advancement of technology has brought many conveniences and benefits while also causing some negative effects.
For example, people’s social problems. A recent Pew Research Center survey of American adults showed that 71% of respondents use Facebook at least occasionally, and 45% of Facebook users log in to the site multiple times a day. These studies show that people seem to be becoming more sociable. Advances in technology have increased the way people connect. But some people think that, on the contrary, technology is making people more eccentric. They believe that we spend so much time maintaining these superficial online connections, which leads to us not having enough time or energy to cultivate deeper relationships in real life. The more you chat online, the less real-life conversations become. Sometimes you just need a hug, a handshake, or a pat on the back, and once in a while, there are “emojis” and “stickers” on social media. The smiley face is cute, but it does not bring a personal connection with the poster. Do you use technology to pet your dog or cat? Not probably, because they couldn’t care less. Sometimes people stop to realize that, as humans, we are also animals that need a personal touch. This research paper will focus on communication apps, intimacy objects, and games to discuss the question if technology can enhance the human relationship, and to what extent can enhance, especially human intimacy.
Main body 1: Communication technology.
Technology starts to change the way people communicate.
The development of information technology is marked by the global spread of the Internet. Since the popularization of personal computers in the 1980s, the transmission of information has become increasingly simple, fast, and cheap. People are seeking a quicker way of communication. It is precise that the United States will ultimately open the military and commercial networks to form a useful Internet. With the development of the Internet, network software has emerged at the historic moment, and instant messaging software and e-mail have enabled people who separate the two places to communicate in a short time. It completely breaks down the restrictions of the region, distance, and ideology, so that people can access various thoughts, cultures, and more importantly, the immediacy of information.
The development of technology, some online platforms, apps, cyberspace, have brought closer relationships between sexual minorities’ special needs. The most advanced technology that is much notable, and it has changed the way we communicate with others, is video chats, messages, or conferences. It is more personal to talk with family and friends with the use of technology. Video conferences are much used in business that makes it easy to view charts and information and also see what’s going on, and viewing presentations and more; for example, Skype is popularly for professional and personal communication. Talking to other members of Skype for free for the purpose of sharing information, with the iPhone, we can have face time with no need of Skype to video chat, all that is needed is another iPhone for you to communicate through the video. Dating apps have also altered our perception of distance and closeness. Considering the new ease and availability of sexual encounters, how does intimacy evolve when sex is commoditized to a level previously unknown?
A multimedia installation by the architect Andrés Jaque, Intimate Strangers, looks at how dating apps-specifically Grindr, the first to be targeted to gay men-have reshaped urban environments into sexualized zones of fleeting, temporary, and surveyed interactions.
Launched in 2009, the app has more than one million users at any given time and provides a way for gays worldwide to have sex. No less than 11% of the servers are still down, “and” 20% of the company’s servers are in countries where homosexuality is prohibited and similar applications, introducing new realms in which individuals can portray themselves and their interests with ideal vision. Therefore, Can claim to help normalize homosexuality, while also contributing to the transformation of gay space from collective activist venues to lifestyle platforms. Grindr has created a new urban space, an online community that can simultaneously increase connectivity and isolation. With the emergence of this new space, there are controversial realities and challenging issues; the rise of applications has led to a decline in space and information privacy, so users not only track each other but are also recorded. On the one hand, the company that develops the application treats user data as big data, which will hurt the user’s privacy, used as a tool for controlling and targeting minorities, while pointing out that its benefits are the fundamental spatial community of the oppressed. Dating apps have also changed our perception of distance and distance.
Karen L. Blair Ph.D., a professor of psychology, explored are dating apps making gay men miserable in a journal. ‘A new study of gay men’s use of dating apps raises questions about whether the technology intended to make our (love) lives easier may be getting in the way of happiness. In a recent study published in Psychology & Sexuality, researchers from the U.K. explored the motivations and outcomes associated with using various gay dating apps among a sample of 191 gay and bisexual men… Participants completed an online questionnaire in which they answered questions about their sense of belonging within the LGBT community, their self-esteem, loneliness, life satisfaction, and their overall frequency and intensity of using various gay dating apps. For example, they were asked how often they logged into gay dating apps and their primary motivation for doing so, from which they could select the following options: to make new friends, to meet people to have sex with, to find someone to date, to kill time, or to connect with the gay community.’ Meanwhile, the results of the study indicate that ‘individuals with lower self-esteem and overall satisfaction with life tend to use the apps differently, perhaps being more likely to seek out relationships rather than casual sex encounters. Additional research would be needed to determine the precise direction of the associations found in this study.’
The Internet is like space, and everyone is in space. There are varieties of room in this space; the same people could choose to enter the same room. In the pre-Internet era, we all existed in the form of small social circles, but the Internet allows everyone to choose and enter a room, and information exchange takes place here in seconds. The Internet is indeed a global community, but we still have not found a way to let it exist and act “commonly.”
In the late 20th century, three “critical boundary collapses” occurred, namely “the boundary between humans and animals,” “the boundary between humans and machines,” and “the boundary between material and immaterial.” It is worth adding that these three borders are indeed more blurred and uncertain Today than in the 1980s of especially the third point-the high popularity and miniaturization of mobile phones and other handheld devices have formed a significant. The most critical of social phenomena or social problems is that interpersonal communication now depends more on the intermediary of mechanical devices. However, technology as a medium for interpersonal communication is not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, technology can make people’s connections independent of region, time, and distance, making it easier and simpler for people. In the objective space, people are alone, but they can still feel connected to each other.
Main body 2:
Cyberpunk is a movement that is the imagination of the future in the past. Now people are living in this future, but it is different from the imagination from the past. Cyberpunk is in a dystopian setting, which means contrary to the ideal society, an extremely harsh final form of society. The continuous development of high technology and artificial intelligence is regarded as a threat by human beings, and the control of technology on the whole society. But the reality is not the darkness predicted by Cyberpunk. Human beings still keep balance and the safe boundary with technology. But the question is how humanity will live in the future, live in the post-cyber age base on existing technology?
Technology is mainly to facilitate people-to-people communication, but they achieve this through a medium that highlights the individual, not through the connection between individuals or the relationship between them. One flaw lies in how technology shapes our social life. More and more people have social problems, people who have difficulty determining their feelings, don’t know what they want (or how others feel, what others won’t), and have problems with sexuality and intimacy also more than before. We have now entered a new stage where everyone wants to achieve optimization—a neoliberal way of thinking. I believe we can find the best way to do everything. In many ways, this is indeed the case. Recognizing the subjective experience and propositions of individuals in the real world, appointing people should be responsible for their free actions, and from a philosophical perspective, if we want to be satisfied, many aspects of life are optimized. In fact, many aspects of life require struggling to reach out, especially for interpersonal relationships.
If we imagine, what will happen to future sex? This question will be answered in a number of ways. However, the leap in technology, coupled with the proliferation of online interpersonal communications ranging from dating apps to pornographic content, many things in between, have made the most intimate human communication by design show some commonality. The topic even now taboos in many cultures and settings. Demonstrating how controversial, such products continue to be, the Osé, a sex toy for a woman’s use, designed by Lora Haddock and developed by a predominately female team of engineers, was awarded a CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Innovationn Award in the robotics and drone product category in 2018, only to have the award almost immediately-and controversially- revoked and the device barred from the display. Haddock’s and Gomes’s designs reflect the progress made toward a more holistic understanding of the importance of sexual intimacy for those who have often been excluded from this human imaginary.
sex toy helps to enhance the feelings of two people to some extent in certain situations (such as a partner in a different place / or a partner suffering from certain physiological diseases, etc.). However, the material level is understood, the object sex toy brings the user Pleasant physiological experience. Still, it can be realized that when the partner uses it at the same time, the partner can produce a psychological feel connect with each other. It can be seen from other examples that sex toys replace human sexual organs to some extent, and use technology to enhance the degree of human psychological or physical pleasure. In other words, it can be interpreted as posthumanism in a certain sense.
Posthumanism strives to transcend the old concept of humanity in order to develop a concept of humanity that can be continuously changed to adapt to contemporary technological sciences. Ihab Hassan, the theorist in the academic study of literature, once stated: ‘Humanism may be coming to an end as humanism transforms itself into something one must helplessly call posthumanism.’(Hassan Ihab, 1977.)
To be more specific, Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future. Many Transhumanist theorists and advocates hope to use reason, science, and technology, and on this basis, reduce poverty, disease, disability, and various diseases that afflict people around the world. Many superhumans actively pay attention to potential future technologies and innovative social systems in order to improve the quality of life and seek to fulfill equality before the law and politics, eliminate natural mental disabilities and physical barriers, and improve the living conditions of human beings. And have a good improvement.
Technology is also bringing a great difference in the way interact with others, play, and work, with the capability of this technology organization forms, new industries, and business model emerging. Advancement in technology can create a vigorous increase in the economy, but can also lead to important changes for workers. The way works are conducted can greatly change with IT and automation, by augmenting or replacing workers in specific tasks. With this, there can be a shift to the demand for some types of human labor, removing some jobs, and new owns are created. The U.S workforce and informational technology explore the interaction between technological, societal trends, economic and identifiers possible near-term development for work.
Due to the rapid development of technology and the speed of scientific understanding, we are entering a completely new stage in human history. In the near future, it will face the prospect of real artificial intelligence. On the other hand, superhumans recognize that some future technologies may cause enormous harm to human life and even put our entire universe in danger.
Trying to understand these dangers and working to prevent disasters is one of the tasks of the transhumanist agenda.
In addition to philosophy, economics, biology, psychology, and other disciplines also define the concept of people. It’s just that people seem to ignore these beliefs and ideas, and the driving force behind them is inseparable from technological improvement. Today, the development of biochemical technology has also contributed to the advent of post-humanism, and those who believe in it from post-structuralism or psychoanalysis Absorb nutrients in the middle and lift the definition of person in modern society. French philosopher Michel Foucault pointed out that ‘the concept of man does not exist a priori, but is constructed by history and society. That is to say, in different time and space, the definition and meaning of people will also be different, and there is no “human nature” that runs through all.’
Main body 3:
Games can seem like social communication app, and as an extension of the technology.
The world we are in is undergoing a profound interactive digital transformation. Now that an epidemic has accelerated this process, the office is remotely digitized, the university is remotely digitized, and even Space-based entertainment has been digitized.
Games similar to The Sims, let people reshape life. Or some disabled people can experience things in technology that cannot be experienced in real life, which will ease some of their psychological distress.
from philosophy, aspect，humanity is the contrast of the technology, but under the some specific situation，Instead, the virtual game can better serve as a medium, help people communicate with each other, narrow their relationship, and reflect some things in reality
Recently, Nintendo Company developed and published a new game, which is named animal crossing. In the Wikipedia, describe this game is a social simulation video game. In the animal crossing, some people have built a house that is the same as their real home in their life. Some people use this game to ‘travel’ and ‘hang out’ with friends because they cannot go out recently. The game uses playful ways to enhance communication between people。. In animal crossing, the user can test for the online multiplayer. Nintendo also needs to rework multiplayer so that it is true drop-in/drop-out. Right now, the system stops everything for more than a minute when someone else joins. And it does this to ensure it can save everyone’s game to avoid item duplication and other tricks.
When players start to create in the game, players will expect the island they create and design to become the one that best fits their own heart and is the most unique so that they will gain recognition through sharing. The in-game socialization brings about the advancement of plots and tasks. Outside the game, the player’s creation and experience can become the social currency in daily social sharing, bringing about the exchange of information and social recognition. This multi-faceted stimulation, Let the multiple social attributes of animal crossing stimulate each other to form the effect of snowballing.
There is also a social amplification effect in the game. The core driving force of social is neutral in nature, but it is also an amplifier of other driving forces. Regardless of the positive or negative side, social sharing leads to discussion, and the positive side is magnified, such as “authorization” involving creativity and feedback, such as the completion of an important task by a player’s friend, which may affect the player and affect other users bring promotion and conversion.
Similarly, things that involve negative emotions may also be magnified. For example, someone caught a rare creature on the island. This kind of situation involving “scarcity,” through socializing, may promote players to share skills with each other. Come to social promotion. However, the discussion on social media caused by the “head dish” with obvious stock attributes in the game may affect different players, whether positive or negative, and the final result may be difficult to say.
To a large extent, the animal crossing is a game about companionship. As the original planner of the animal crossing series, Katsuya Eguchi, who was the deputy general manager of Nintendo Entertainment Development Department, once talked about his experience of working alone in Kyoto away from his family. The kind of unforgettable loneliness that he was an important driving force behind this series. “It was then that I realized that sharing time with them turned out to be such an important thing.” (Katsuya Eguchi)
At the planning meeting of the first animal crossing, Katsuya Eguchi and the team established three cores of this series: “Family,” “Friendship,” and “Community.” Although each game in the animal crossing series has unique game settings and scene specifications, its spiritual core has never changed. This game makes players think about the importance of companionship, whether it is “family,” “friendship” or “community,” these concepts are emphasizing the interaction and connection between the player and the NPC animal in animal crossing, and other players.
At the same time, as a game released on the Switch platform, animal crossing supports single-player and double-player modes. One person per Joy-Con can play in double-player mode, which makes it more interactive on-site. At the same time, online friends can also board each player’s island to communicate and interact with friends. The most important thing is that the mechanism of multi-person interaction is not troublesome, making the interaction of animal crossing a simple and convenient mechanism.
This game has its own unique social rules. Nintendo’s game design has always been known for being friendly and friendly. Really making “Dong Sen” gradually become a pre-social game, becoming a hotspot of information continuously shared on social media, and obtaining continuous user recognition, which is largely derived from the construction of its underlying social rules. Dongen is building a “hidden underlying social rule” that transcends reality—or better than real life, magnifies the real-world rules that it follows and promotes universal rules, and thus strengthens the user ‘s “identity” of the game. Players will want to share their feelings in the game. In the end, this deep implicit rule drives users to make more and more explicit sharing. It gradually builds our Twitter, animal crossing, The general torrents, screenshots, communication, and sharing seen on Reddit. These rules are in many games, but they have strengthened again in this game: for example, users need to chat with small animals to increase their feelings, and then they can give each other items. Players need to care about the islanders ‘daily lives. Live, chat, and give gifts to each other so that you can get more DIY maps, and the premise of adding friends is that you need to meet each other in the game, and you want to have something designed by others. After obtaining the owner’s consent, you can touch it, and then players can go back to their island to order and so on. Many of these rules are undoubtedly optimized based on our daily rules, dividing the boundaries and strengthening the side of mutual assistance. To a large extent, it is an adhesive that enhances friendship between users and real friends. This relatively softer social system that conforms to mainstream values makes it extremely friendly, and it also promotes the sharing of game-related experiences and narrows the distance of intimacy in reality.
The prototype of this model comes from the demand theory model of A.H.Maslow, the founder of the humanistic psychology school. The basic content of this theory is: the basic needs of human beings should be met and the potential requirements realized. Basic needs refer to the most basic needs people have in common, including people’s special wishes under different cultural conditions.
In Maslow’s theory of needs, the needs of love and belonging are related to the social in the game: the social and interactive systems in the game derive complex interpersonal relationships and intimacy in the game. Marriage, alliance, etc.
The game serves as a binder at this time to narrow the relationship between the characters in multiple games, thus mapping to the intimate relationship between players in reality.
Conclusion：The interactive experience of technology that can connect us more in terms of feelings and feelings is happening in our daily life, not in those imaginations or predictions about technology. For example, in augmented reality, we will become the “browser of the past” and “window of the future”, we will continue to explore new virtual worlds, and the physical body is just one of the “hardware” we need.
Reference:
- Blair, K., 2019. Are Dating Apps Making Gay Men Miserable?. [online] Psychology Today. Available at: <https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inclusive-insight/201912/are-dating-apps-making-gay-men-miserable> [Accessed 28 April 2020].
- Fan, S. and Taylor, M., 2019. Will AI Replace Us?.
- Hiesinger, K., 2019. Design For Different Futures. Italy, p.61.
- Home Futures. London: Design museum.