Socialising is beneficial to our health, physical and mental. This article suggests face-to-face contact can make us resilient to stress factors and motivate our brain power. Being social is a good thing. So our circle of friends, family and interests can shape our lives further than we may have thought…

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321019#Social-context-determines-healthful-habits

It is fair to write, not everybody wishes to socialise in big groups of people. For some individuals, socialisation can cause stress and anxiety, and harm their health. Online socialisation becomes a good tools and the opportunity to withdraw from the exchange. It has successfully brought autism suffers to work and integration to society. That cannot be bad.

When growing up, elderly people would be quite reluctant using a telephone. Their perception came from growing up without one. They had to learn how to use it. People born in the 60s and 70s have witnessed such an unprecedented technological development. They have experienced such learning curves with many technologies, such as the adoption of the Internet and the development of the web. Mobile phones and others video calls tools.

With the rise of user-centred interaction design, technologies has stopped being a witchcraft for the few, but something the masses can integrate in their daily activities.

Younger generations, such as millennials, have grow up with the tools and should be able to use it without any problems, but will they?

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/a-brief-history-of-human-computer-interaction

Socialisation opportunities exists and can bring people’s together. Social media can help us to keep in touch with many people around the world. Phone and texts can assists us to communicate quickly with our family, relatives and friends. But what about making real social connections?

Recently, I had no choice to attend an online conference. It was outstandingly organised. We had some various online rooms, coffee rooms and question and answers opportunities. It was very informative and it helped promoting new ideas. The user interaction was quite intuitive and effective. I was glad my carbon-footprint was reduced, through the lack of travel.

Nonetheless, I felt there was a lack of spontaneity in our exchange with presenters. Meeting other attendees was more challenging. People attending similar themes appeared to keep for themselves, rather than bring some discussions. It was good I could make my own cup of teas, without waiting for the break. But, I could not discuss and make informal connections with other attendees. Also, I was unable to concentrate more than two hours on a screen at a time.

In fact, the attendance to the talk keep dropping. I observed attendees chose their talk. If they did not engage, they would move to some other presentations. Presenters had a more challenging job, to keep their audience attention. Presenters had to address the fact humans cannot concentrate for a long time on a screen. Presenters had to become innovative to keep their audience.

The most successful presenters were some biologists. They brought some images of hidden animals and demonstrated how deep learning machine techniques identified the beast. I must admit it was more exciting than the presentation informing me ML algorithms can identify the most expensive houses in Switzerland are in Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, Basel and Zurich. I knew it already. Some presenters brought to life their presentation by explaining the limitations to their techniques and shown us why. Nobody can fail that.

With the lockdown, my children have been embracing technologies for entertainment. They have also used it for their own education. While using virtual learning environment had been challenging, they have become quite good at learning about history and geography through videos. They have becoming wise about the quality of the content.

They have yet to engage with the Zoom, Teams and other online activities. They prefer the real thing and socialisation brought with the real experience. So, their instinct is taking over technology.

With that in mind, online socialisation is unlikely to become popular. Distance learning may not become the new thing to do in the long term. Our own preferences will dictate our choices and both methods of working and education should remain. We may be working more from home, but only partially. We may now have days at home and days in the office for meetings, brainstorming and building professional relationships. It is part of our nature and we cannot denied it. Online summer barbecue, perhaps not .