Do You Want a Future Where Family Members All Wear AR/VR HMDs, Alone Together in the Same Room?

In a family setting: one person may use a Magic Leap One to watch movies (giant screens, no atoms); another may play experiential games (like Dr. G), another may learn how to code (Unreal, Unity), and another may start building the volumetric internet with Helio.

— Rony Abovitz (@rabovitz) April 9, 2019

Fascinating tweet last night from the CEO of Magic Leap Rony Abovitz, which now has well over $2 billion in funding to bring augmented reality to the mass market; in it, Abovitz sketches out a future when AR has become mainstream:

In a family setting: one person may use a Magic Leap One to watch movies (giant screens, no atoms); another may play experiential games (like Dr. G), another may learn how to code (Unreal, Unity), and another may start building the volumetric internet with Helio.

Which strikes me as a fascinating vision for the future. Abovitz may well be right -- and in a decade or so, it's likely that the price of AR headsets will come down enough that each member of a middle class family could feasibly own a pair. But I suspect this forecast makes a common but false assumption that many technologists make: Assessing the value of a product only by its technical features, while not giving any consideration to how the product might change the social dynamics of its users.

Because direct eye contact, especially among close friends, lovers, and family members, seems to be a deeply ingrained human need or reflex:

Our sensitivity to eye contact begins incredibly early. Infants of just two days of age prefer looking at faces that gaze back at them... Whether or not other people make eye contact with us changes the way that we think about them and their feelings. For example, we are more likely to remember faces with which we’ve experienced mutual gaze, and we consider displays of anger and joy to be more intense when shown by a person making eye contact. In fact, when a person or human-like entity (such as a human face morphed with a doll) makes eye contact with us, we assume that he/she/it has a more sophisticated mind and a greater ability to act in the world, such as to show self-control and act morally, and a greater desire for social contact.

That's quite a lot to override with a new technology. And of course, it's true that we spend far too much of our time on the digital devices we have now. But that brings up another feature, best expressed in visual terms:

While mobile device fixation is a genuine problem for many reasons, it's also created a new, beneficial kind of socialization: It enables us to easily share and consume what we care about with each other, at the same time, physically together. We generally share what's on our devices on a regular basis only with our closest friends and family, because the very act of sharing is so intimate: We cozy up and lean our heads together, and watch our expressions change by what we're seeing.

So really, whether Abovitz is right depends on whether you -- and the mass consumer base as a whole -- find the image at right far more appealing than the one on the left. Do you? 

Imagine a whole family sitting alone together in the same room, each wearing separate AR headsets, so that their separate screens can no longer be communally shared, and the expressions on each others’ faces can no longer be directly seen.

Imagine that as the desired goal. https://t.co/5Wrog5nj1y

— Wagner James Au (@slhamlet) April 9, 2019

None of which is to say AR/VR is born to fail -- as I've written frequently elsewhere, it's a great technology for use cases where full immersion is extremely important (therapy, education, etc.), or for short bursts of casual entertainment and long distance socialization. But the tweet reminds me of the observation game designer Warren Spector made years ago: 

"The challenges I don't hear being addressed at all (or without appropriate seriousness) are cultural and social. Problems abound, but the big one I see are the isolating effect of simply wearing a headset."

Four years and many billions of dollars later, that still seems to be the case.

* Title with apologies to Sherry Turkle, author of the book with the same name/theme.

Comments

[Amanda]

AR will have to be in a more invisible format before it catches on like smart phones. It's maybe at the Apple Newton stage and has a long way to go.

Whatever they develop to give us VR it will be a tool used when full immersion is desired. For many things a keyboard, mouse and screen are more effective (even if they are delivered through some form of AR).

Society will change but it always changes. It's changed a great deal in the last 40 years with smart phones, starting with cell phones installed in cars and voice pagers to the most modern iPhones and Android phones today. Think of predictions of the future at early 20th century World Fairs. Where's my flying car?

Society will continue to change in surprising ways we can't predict due to our bias of living in our own time and place.

[irihapeti]

in the vid interview with Ebbe you asked about screen vs headsets in Sansar. He said its in 75/25 in favour of screens. That the 25 are pretty much doing social and hanging out. The 75 are exploring and working

The counter-social idea that the photo of the parent and child tries to convey just doesn't happen like that with headsets/game controllers/headphones,etc, unless both parent and child are playing in the same game together. When the parent is not playing and needs or wants to share with their child something else then its drop the headphones/controller/tablet/device and pay attention to me please. That's how social works. In the same way when family are all in their own rooms playing separately on whatever. Headset walls and bedroom walls, same thing

[Jane]

"Do You Want A Future Where Family Members All Wear AR/VR HMDs, Alone Together In The Same Room?" ---- Have we not, most of us, already seen the following:
* A train full of people looking at their phones
* A room full of family members and friends looking at their phones
* Any large public area full of people looking at their phones
* Cafés full of people looking at their phones
I have seen, first hand, a breakfast table for 4 at a beach resort where every single one of the family (parents and 2 children) were glued to their phones. No one was talking to anyone else. Your future is already here.

[Amanda]

@Jane. Exactly. I know a young couple who will text each other from across the the room in their home. They just had a kid. That kid will grow up in a home where everyone sees the world through the screen of their phone.

[sirhc desantis]

@Jane, well on the train front yep - its great. Peace and quiet without all the weirdos wanting to start a 'conversation'. Ditto public places and cafes - there to do something so not the slightest bit interested in some rando wanting to chat inanities :) The more people in these places are distracted and not bugging me - the better.
As for the home front - not a lot of difference there from when our unit shared a 'living room' with one adult watching the idiot box, one knitting and kids engaged in - other things.
As Ford once mused on humans 'If they don’t keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.' Spot on, I always thought.

[Philip Rosedale]

Agree about eye contact. Interesting to note, though, that the next-gen AR devices (I've used them) will be like normal glasses where you can very clearly see the other person's eyes. Meaning that, for families, they are potentially a lot better for eye contact than the phone. I will be able to look right at you while playing a game or something - occasionally smiling and making eye contact with you, for example.