Augmented Reality as another re-envisioning of the future that never happened

Posted on | January 15, 2010 | 2 Comments

As children, many people were brought up on the science-fiction of the 1970′s and 1980′s. There seemed to be a bounty of promise in this vision of a 3D virtualized, “everything at your fingers” holographic world.  ”Augmented Reality” seems to be another attempt to reconstruct the idyllic science-fiction fantasies of many adult’s childhood and less an attempt to address any real problem.

Second Life and Augmented Reality.

Anecdotally, when I was first getting involved with people interested in delivering innovative media to students I was shocked at how often the word Second Life came up. There was talk of using this as an interactive space to “go where the young people are,” and legions of librarians and self-described “media innovators” went to conferences to see how to use Second Life in their classrooms to engage with students on a digital level. The problem that was overlooked by many enthralled with the promise of this 3D world was that it wasn’t where the young people were.

Young people who grew up in the digital age have always had technology in their lives did not grow up dreaming about Tron-like 3D worlds or fantasize about the day that their security GUI would look like something from Jurassic Park. I’m positing that the reason why young people were not in Second Life was because they didn’t see the utility in it for enabling them to communicate more quickly and efficiently. The Milennials want functionality, not style.

Where Augmented Reality Comes into Play

Among these library types and older media innovators, the Second Life enthusiasm seems to have fizzled and has been replaced by another attempt to re-creating the science fiction dreams of the 1980s. Augmented Reality applications and writing today is awash with literature about how digital overlays will transform significantly the way that we interact with one another within the next decade (Recall similar language used to describe the use of 3D worlds?).

A look at the trends that have caught on have been decidedly low-tech ideas. Twitter is a hot tool among the Milennial generation as well as other young people. Quick loading, low overhead instant gratification. Facebook is a primarily all-text platform which appealed to young college students in the Mid-2000s while MySpace with all of its technological razzle-dazzle is hemorrhaging users. I don’t think this is a coincidence: for a generation who has always lived in the age of the Internet, instant gratification and speed is what the winning tools have had in common and what many failures have not. Fifteen years into web page design, we know well how users use webpages:

People are impatient on the Internet. Instantly gratify them, or they’re out. - Jakob Nielsen

I think it’s naivety to believe that users of phones will be willing to give more time to find information while interacting in the real world than while passively sitting in front of a computer. Fifteen years into web use, what evidence do we have that a slower loading and more difficult to use version of something that exists in a simpler format will be preferred?

For people who’ve lived with Search Engines their entire lives, what could be easier than just typing in a word, or an address, and combining that with GPS be able to pull up what is around you? How is that easier (or faster) than holding up your phone and waiting for an image to register and map things in 3-dimensional space? It seems that Augmented Reality is delivering on a vision promised to an older generation that promised computers acting as a direct intermediary in real space; whereas, the younger generation is more attuned to a representational and symbolic world- where information is delivered quickly and efficiently. If so then I ask, what is Augmented Reality the solution to?

Many things are “cool” but only those that are “useful” are adopted. I know that technologists should ignore a new technology only to their own peril; that is not what I am proposing here. I am suggesting only that before AR moves forward in any meaningful way we need to identify who AR is attempting to serve?; how it improves upon what is currently out there?; and additionally, how can AR add value to everyday life while making sense within the normal face to face interactive process?

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