Anatomy of a great night out

This study explored the night-time social life of young 20 somethings. Its goal was to understand what space there was for mobile devices to deliver greater utility.

The biggest discovery was how much unpredictability and spontaneity were the main experiential elements that defined a great night in the eyes of this cohort. The video gives their account of its value. An abridged report appears here

A force that divides and unites

ipod, the internet, blackberries. Technology is often maligned for its capacity to isolate because it separates people to retreat into their own world. This is surely only a generational perspective. Anyone younger than a Boomer who grew up from an early age with computers certainly won't feel this way. Xers and younger have a different relationship with technology and reality. They use technology as a tool in which they remain the master not the slave.

Case in point. Second Life. Here's an except of an interview with CEO of Linden Labs - the company behind Second Life, by David Pogue, from his recent article A Experiment in Virtual Living:


DP: "Is there any worry about the whole isolation thing? First iPod earbuds, and now people substituting virtual interactions for real ones?"

PR: "Well I'll tell ya, the history of technology has, in the past 50 years, been to increasingly isolate us. We've gone from watching movies in a movie theater, to watching them as a family at home, to watching them alone on our iPod.

But actually I think there's a next wave of technology, of which Second Life is certainly a great example, where we are bringing people back together again into the same place to have these experiences.

The thing about Second Life that is so fascinating and different is not just that it's 3-D. There are always people to share that experience with, or to ask for help. Or to laugh at something with. And that experience is an innately human one that technology has deprived us of. I think many people use Second Life to have more friends, and more human contact, than they do in the real world"

It is fascinating to hear that people who are regular Second Lifers spend 4 hours a day in this virtual world. Sounds like an excellent time for a social experiment: how about a longitudinal study in which groups of Second Lifers are tracked and segmented across how much time they spend in the real vs. virtual world. A wonderful opportunity to understand how on-line time affects off-line behavior and the inter-play between the two.

This is an exciting age, one that's fluid, evolving into ever-changing possibilities and will be marked as a time by its character of seemingly contradictory opposites, such as fragmentation and convergence.

Coming soon to a living room near you

The latest illustration of how digital media is changing the face of the entertainment industry


On-line Yesterday, On Cable Today (New York Times 3/25/07) chronicles just how quickly people created content is going from obscurity to the mainstream. As the article's title intones, Human Giant made the leap in very rapid fashion indeed, a time span unthinkable 5 or 10 years ago. Skit-orienting programming also seems to naturally lend itself to shorter, looser and more varied material from comedy and improv troupes that are an emerging breed of talent in the new entertainment economy.

What’s not surprising is how quickly and well entertainment companies – like Fuse, MTV and NBC – are evolving to chaperone this talent. They realize that content is king: whoever has that funniest, or at least most compelling whatever the genre – wins. They clearly see the choice in front of them and they aren’t about to take the road to extinction. The challenge is in spotting the next great blockbuster from the also ran. In the movie industry (and the music industry come to think of it) it’s often been the independents that have had more success in spotting and nurturing low budget big ideas than the Hollywood machine.

Beyond content alone there are exciting milestones ahead in entertainment culture too. I can see a day in the not too distance future in which some kind of new hit series, a participation-based format perhaps, takes place ENTIRELY on PDAs/cell phones and not on TV. (Perhaps one in which the general public provide input not to vote on elimination of characters but on outcomes for a scenario and the most popular suggestion is used to adapt the course of action the cast/participants must take in real time) Would it not be a defining moment in the evolution of mass entertainment to have a population transfixed not through a shared screen – as when people huddled around televisions in shop windows to witness the first steps of man walking on the moon – but instead connected through the intimate medium of their own, personal PDA or cell phone screen? One which allows each mobile viewer the opportunity to cast a vote and shape the outcome? Given the heightened anticipation of its $500 iPhone, it’s just the kind of ‘first’ that Apple could pull off.

Darwinism 2.0

To introduce an improvement to an original idea the software industry started the practice of using versions differentiated with numbers, as in Lotus 4.0 or Apple OS 9.0. In the organic way language evolves with culture to assume new meaning (as with the term "ground zero" which connotes the return to new starting point) this numerical version convention has been more widely adopted, such as signifying the new internet era in which we now live, web 2.0.

OFD is proud to launch Darwinism 2.0, a new expanded understanding of the seminal thinking the scientifically established that the authentic explanation for man's development is evolution.
Darwinism 2.0 recognizes that evolution - the act of interacting with the environment to become better adapted - must be extended beyond the physical realm to incorporate cognitive and psychological activity.


While physical evolution takes place over many thousands of years, the pace and scope of technological and cultural change means that for people to remain in harmony with their environment and maintain a good fit, a more rapid evolution in the psychology of the species - the way of thinking - is needed.


Widespread evidence suggests this is not happening. The number of non-genetic based disorders that are emerging and the scale in which they exist are clear indications that homo sapiens sapiens is not adapting to the new world mankind has fashioned:

*Hyper-activity and attention disorders among children from a over-stimulated technology fueled media culture

*Sleep disorders from high stress work/life culture

*Depression linked to levels of stress, due to the role of technology in intensifying the pace and complexity of work, life and social demands


In today's culture of prescribed and self medication, it is no surprise that the consequences of the profound lack of adaptation to the new techno/socio/familial environment is a reliance on pharmacology. People are encouraged to accept that this is a viable remedy when all it does it treat the symptoms rather than the underlying cause: homo sapiens sapiens' limits in speed of cognititive and psychological evolution to an environment he has created for himself. A deep irony indeed.


This creates an interesting possibility for a mechanism for evolution that lies outside the scope of Darwin's original field. While evolution of a physical nature cannot be directed (it is the result of shifts that happen over a long period of time) it is fundamentally different paradigm for mental evolution. There is much progress to be made in actively equipping people with the tools to direct their mental evolution: in the form of coping strategies as well as educational psychology to expose formative minds to influences that will prepare them not just to adapt but thrive in today's world.


In the meantime, Darwinism 2.0 represents a milestone in the use of cognitive sciences and psychology to assist in evolutionary adaptation of thinking to the emerging technologically oriented society.