What I am trying to say is, that I almost hate this modern connected world we now live in. It is killing the joy of reality. The multidimensional interaction we have with people face to face is extremely rich. It literally excites us at all active senses.

The reason I am writing this post is that I prefer meeting someone to comment on their, for instance, new hairdo as opposed to looking at a photo on my BlackBerry.

Let’s take an extreme view point to elaborate the situation and give it more structure. For visually impaired people, for instance, who have developed their other senses manifold can never be satisfied by a braille or a screen reader. Even if talking over the phone or online voice chat, the clarity of real sound is certainly missing not to mention the smell we may be wearing. 

The general focus that I see mostly in my line of work, i.e. Human Computer Interaction, Ergonomics, Usability, and User Experience Design is on the currently available interfaces and improving our direct manipulation of the same. Not much seems to be done in creating new more useful / usable interfaces. I understand and appreciate the facts like that creating scents and smells is extremely difficult, which is why I intend to talk about something a little more holistic and general.

I believe, to facilitate the full array that is life we need to stop thinking of computers to be the tube, pipe, or vehicle connecting people, transferring data between them. The wisdom of the crowds should we directed towards making the machine vanish, and immerse us. We need to step back and change the broader perspective. We need to look beyond the machine and focus on improving our interaction with other people and information. 

Disclaimer: these were just some wandering thoughts in my head, you are more than welcome to comment, share your ideas, and hopefully correct me if and where I may be wrong.