How do you imagine social interaction within 10 years, taking into consideration the impact of technology on human relations?

By Vincent Thilly for IE Business School

The evolution of technology will have a progressive but significant impact on social interactions and the way we build relationships with others.

Let me walk you through the influences I find most probable within the next 10 years.

People are more and more connected with each other through new technologies and this trend will certainly not slow down.

Social Networks

Online social networks and their use will evolve. Links between networks will intensify and people will use them to refine their relationship networks in a way that allows them to create more complex and wider connections.

Online social networks will become more effective in helping people create added value (e.g. work together or find specific expertise) and find satisfaction (e.g. identify the right product or the right destination).

Permanent Connection

Permanent connection to the internet is almost a reality. New technologies that exploit this like the Google glasses will influence our relationships as we will be able to share moments of our lives as we live them.

This continuous access to the cloud means we will be able to « remember » many more relationship events. In other words, I will never forget the name of someone I meet, even someone I briefly meet.

Enhanced Reality

Enhanced reality will dramatically change our relationships and social interactions as our reputation will stick to us and appear to other people trough enhanced reality devices.This will have enormous implications on our ethics and our values as a society.

Medical breaktroughs

As medicine improves, people will live longer. Some talk about 200 years old as doctors will be able to create organs and prescribe medication based on the genome of the virus assaulting one’s body.A longer life perception should have an impact on our relationships as they could last much longer.

Virtual humans

Virtual humans or robots will be added to the workforce. This should free the human race from laborous tasks that take a lot of time.Hence, more time will be availiable to relationships (personal or professional). People will be able to develop deeper relationships and extend their network much further.

Communication Technologies

New technologies such as the universal translator and the hologram are likely to be developped in the next decade. These devices will allow us to communicate more effectively with more people around the world.

In the next decade, social interactions will intensify as the importance of relationships will increase.• Social networks will be an important source of added

value.• Relationships will become deeper and more important

as people will have a easy access to memories and live longer.

• Selection based on reputation will influence social interactions deeply.

• More time will be availiable to work on our relationships and build our networks.

• Our networks will be much wider and diverse• Social interactions will be almost permanent.

BUT…

Humans will always be humans

I believe technology will never substitute the need for physical interaction that we have. Humans will always meet in person and technology will allow us to intensify our relationships with memories, longer lives, more time, information, ...