In general, I find that the younger people are, the more likely they are to be in the habit of scrolling through social media streams. It’s a form of connecting with one’s culture and peers that feels distinctly different from the analogous forms of connection used by earlier generations.
When we all have those mixed reality glasses, I wonder what the future of social media streaming will be like. Will people on the street, the subway, coffee shops, park benches, spend their time staring off into space, tuning out everything around them to connect with their larger culture? And if so, will our current notions of physical connectedness start to break down.
Or will those future notions of physical connectedness merely change, and evolve to become something that we could no longer recognize. Maybe to something even richer than what is possible today, yet as incomprehensible to us as TikTok would be to anyone living a century ago.