Bricks or Bytes: Places to Meet

@dybrkr

Real Estate and Architecture in the Age of Connectivity

We have been following each other with a friend on Facebook for three years and we happen to meet in an alumni organization. We have talked for three minutes only, and to my utter surprise I realized that in that three minutes I learned more about him, than I thought I knew in those three years of FB friendship. It was about not what he says, but how he says it.

According to a recent study of Harvard, 93% of all communication effectiveness is determined by non verbal clues, even among close friends (1). This study is done among generations who still know how to socialize face-to-face. What will happen in the future of socialization, with changing technology, is still not clear.

In 2018 a US national survey revealed that 33% of teens spend more time socializing online with close friends, and less time socializing face-to-face. Even when they meet at weekends, about half of them spend extended times where instead of talking to each other they stare to their smartphones. (3)

Meanwhile, millennials enjoy different kinds of social activities. DayBreaker, is a website that organizes early hour sober dance parties for millennials. The program usually starts with 06:00 AM yoga, followed by two hours of dance party with surprise events. Sponsors serve free kombucha and breakfast bites. They chose locations such as World Trade Center, New York, Paris for their activities…. giving ‘Instagramable’ experiences. (5)

For generation Z, which spend more time on social media, more than any other generation, - 3 hours in average -, the design of virtual spaces can be as important as the spaces in real life.

Fortnite is a famous computer game which has about 250 million registered users with 85% belonging to generation Z. In February 2019, there was a live Marshmello Concert but within the virtual environment of the game. The concert had a virtual place to meet, stage and effects design. It was also interactive, avatars could dance.

Marshmellow Holds First Ever Fortnite Concert Live at Pleasant Park

Advertising follows people. It is interesting to see where advertisers target globally. This is a survey done by a media company, named Zenith. Although this should not be taken as a strict data but rather as an assumption of what advertising firms think people will spend their time in the near future.

According to this research, in 2018 advertisers spend more money in all the internet medium than television. They think in 2021, people will be traveling less (or be less aware of their surroundings), read less magazines and newspapers, listen less radio but spend more time in the internet, globally.

Share of global ad spend by medium (%) (7)

However, watching tv is not an alternative to spending time on internet. Unfortunately these two activities sometimes add to each other. In USA, 2.8 hours daily is the average time spend watching tv, while 2.06 hours daily is the time spend on social media, which adds up to 4.86 hours daily, which leaves much less time to socialize face-to-face.

Each social relationship takes time and requires a good level of communication. Social media can initiate relationships, but to nurture it, for now, face-to-face interaction still plays a crucial role.

Design of social spaces in the age of connectivity, where space is becoming more fluent between virtual and reality, more integrated and multi-disciplinary, is much more connected. Space is something more than bricks, but also bytes.

References:

(1) 2017, March, Roghanizad, Bohns, “Ask in person: You're less persuasive than you think over email” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, p. 223-226

(2) Activity in Social Media & Intimacy in Social Relationships”

(3) 2018, June, Screen Education, Teen Smartphone Addiction National Survey 2018,

(4) 2016, January, Dunbar, R.I.M, “Do online social media cut through the constraints that limit the size of offline social networks?”, Royal Society

(5) www.daybreaker.com

(6) Marshmello Concert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBsCzN-jfvA

(7) 2019, March, Zenith Media, “Global Intelligence 8”

(8) https://www.vertoanalytics.com/chart-week-deep-dive-fortnite/

(9) Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm