The Growing Potential of Human Connection in Immersive Technology
Long before we found ourselves facing today’s imposed physical distancing, loneliness had been identified as a mounting public health threat in America. A 2018 international survey conducted by The Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with The Economist, found that “more than a fifth of adults in the United States (22 percent) and the United Kingdom (23 percent), as well as one in ten adults (nine percent) in Japan, say they often or always feel lonely, feel that they lack companionship, feel left out, or feel isolated from others.”
We felt a resonance with this difficult truth four years ago when we formed Emerge, and knew that in the modern age of technology, we needed to find new ways of fostering meaningful human connections amid an era of disconnection.
Now, as most of the world practices physical distancing as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, the long and short term societal implications are hard to grasp. Gideon Lichfield recently wrote about this in MIT Technology Review, saying, “All of us will have to adapt to a new way of living, working, and forging relationships.”
As we adopt these different behaviors to meet this new reality, how can we forge meaningful ways to be socially and emotionally close, no matter our location?
At Emerge, we believe that now is the time to leverage immersive technologies to foster human connection and bridge the gap between what is now a seemingly insurmountable distance.
The Value of Touch in an Era of Physical Distancing
Touch is the first sense we experience when we enter the world, and in this way, touch is our true “first language” and a critical component to feeling less distant. We long for the ability to experience meaningful touch — the ability to hold a hand, to feel a hug, and to have a physical connection no matter where we are. Can technology bridge that gap? We think it can.
With the new need to overcome the hurdles of distance in collaborative and social settings, the world has flocked to video telepresence solutions like Zoom over the past weeks. But even with these communications technologies, we still feel distant. Why? Part of the reason is that touch is missing from those interactions.
Bringing the sense of human connection to our digital communications — not to replace in-person experiences but to reintroduce our first language to virtual communications for when we are apart — has been our goal at Emerge since 2015.
From a virtual high five to holographic chess to immersive learning and wellness applications, we believe that adding the sensation of touch to our virtual communications and experiences is one way of achieving this closeness we are craving — and there is considerable research to back this up ( Stanford University, University of Twente Enschede, Eindhoven University of Technology, Helsinki Institute of Tech).
The Next Frontier: Social Wellness
Over the past decade, we’ve seen countless examples of how technology can digitally connect us to the people we care about the most. Whether its advancements in mobile devices, video conferencing, or communication applications, it has never been easier to communicate. We believe that now is the time to think beyond the screens that divide us to the next frontier: technology that fosters the feeling of in-person, or human, connection.
From video conferencing and live streaming platforms to AR remote collaboration tools like Spatial and multi-user holographic displays like Looking Glass, we see amazing opportunities for devices and applications to bridge our physical distance and break down the barriers in social distancing and wellness.
No digital solution is a replacement for in-person, human connection, but as we watch and take part in the creation of a new generation of remote presence solutions, we are hopeful that our technology, along with others in this space, will bring people together across distances through powerful new mediums that were previously unavailable.
Sly Lee is the CEO and co-founder of Emerge.
