Understanding the Digital Revolution Through Love in the Digital Age

WHAT IS LOVE?Understanding the digital revolution

through love in the digital age.

Photo credit: Her (2013)

We wanted the offline person to translate into the mobile person.

- Lako Cho, Co-Founder, Between

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In today’s world, digital

is everything...

4Photo credit: Rey Vladyc Mangouta

+47%In global mobile

advertising from 2012 to 2013 ($12.76 B).

+16%In global Internet ad-vertising from 2012 to

2013 ($116 B).

5Source: Internet Trends 2014, Mary MeekerPhoto credit: Gabe Ramos

+58%In mobile app + ad

spending from 2012 to 2013 ($38 B)

From Spending

5.2BMobile phone users

worldwide.

1.6BSmartphone users

worldwide.

429MMTablet users worldwide.

+47%In global mobile

advertising from 2012 to 2013 ($12.76 B).

+16%In global Internet ad-vertising from 2012 to

2013 ($116 B).

6Source: Internet Trends 2014, Mary MeekerPhoto credit: Gabe Ramos

+58%In mobile app + ad

spending from 2012 to 2013 ($38 B)

To ConsumptionFrom Spending

25%Mobile usage as per-centage of total web

usage.

50BWhatsApp messages

sent per day.

5.2BMobile phone users

worldwide.

1.6BSmartphone users

worldwide.

6MMGuest stays through

Airbnb, and 550K list-ings (+83% Y/Y)

429MMTablet users worldwide.

+47%In global mobile

advertising from 2012 to 2013 ($12.76 B).

+16%In global Internet ad-vertising from 2012 to

2013 ($116 B).

7Source: Internet Trends 2014, Mary MeekerPhoto credit: Gabe Ramos

+58%In mobile app + ad

spending from 2012 to 2013 ($38 B)

To Consumption To UtilityFrom Spending

But what does digital

really mean?

8Photo credit: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

The best way to see it is

through love.

9Photo credit: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Because love isn’t what it used to be.

10Photo credit: Say Anything (1989)

Mostly because of technology

(and cat pictures).

Photo credit: Cheglakov Eugene 11

So here are three cultural

trends that help explain digital

(not cats, though).

Photo credit: Fernando Kohan 12

COURTSHIPRE-DEFINED1/

Photo credit: Jichul Kim 13

A flatter, but not-so-dif-ferent dating worldTinder has now become one of the most popular ways to meet new people. Its ma-jor difference to dating in the past is the effortless volume of options and interac-tions, but its true resonance is how similar it mirrors our behaviour in the physical world: we unconsciously deter-mine attraction instantly on appearances.

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Tinder is a dating app that allows users to ei-ther swipe profiles of nearby singles left (not interested) or right (inter-ested). If both users swipe each other’s profile right, they’re then connected and are able to message each other.

800 MMSwipes per

day (Internet Trends 2014)

An evening in NYC on Tinder...

620,000 Swipes19,000 Matches

60,000 Messages Sent(New York Times)

11 MMMatches per day (Internet Trends 2014)

The New ‘Non-Date’It’s hard to determine what’s a ‘date’ anymore and if you’ve actu-ally just been on one.

Asynchronous communication over phone texts, Instagram posts, and other ‘non-dates’ have cumu-latively replaced how we devel-oped relationships in many ways through dating a decade ago.

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Dating culture has evolved to a cycle of text messages, each one re-quiring the code-break-ing skills of a cold war

spy to interpret. “The End of Courtship?”

The New York Times, January

11, 2013

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Embrace all of the men in your orbit, whether they text or G-chat, whether they’re hunky or grun-gy... and in the midst of

this confusing, messy muddle, the young wom-en argued, romance can

(sometimes) bloom.

“Seeking Love? Find Strength in

Numbers”The New York Times, October

24, 2012

“Tinder’s Sean Rad Hints At A Future Beyond

Dating,”TechCrunch, Oc-

tober 29, 2013

..the basic mechanism, where two people are only connected when they both

express interest in each other, is “a universal thing across friendships, across

business, across any-thing.”

TECH AND COUPLE CULTURE IN SEOUL

2/Photo credit: Kimhwan

A Laboratory for Digital LoveKnown for its technological advancements over the rest of the world and its unique couple culture, South Korea serves as the perfect microscopic lens to analyze where love in the digi-tal age is headed.

18Photo credit: Jared Lim

19Photo credit: CNN

Technology in South Korea at a Glance

4G LTE Subway Network

Along with subway trains arriving every 90 seconds, transit riders

usually watch live televi-sion (through DMB) on their phones or message

using KakaoTalk. (New Yorker)

Virtual Supermarkets

At certain subway sta-tions and bus stops,

virtual grocery stores are setup where commuters can scan grocery items

and have them delivered to their home.

5.2 Billion Kakao-Talk Messages Sent

Per DayAnd 93% of smartphone users in South Korea use KakaoTalk, the popular

messaging app (TechTimes).

73% of the Population Are Smartphone UsersThe second highest smart-phone penetration in the

world, only falling behind to United Arab Emirate with 73.8%. (The Independent)

98% of Households Have Broadband

Compared to U.S.’s 68%. (New Yorker)

Photo credit: kimhwan

South Korea’s Couple Culture

at a Glance

20Photo credit: www.couplemotion.com

Diary Day (Jan.), Valen-tine’s Day (Feb.), White Day (Mar.), Black Day (Apr), Rose Day (May),

Kiss Day (June), Silver Day (July), Green Day (Aug.),

Photo and Music Day (Sept.), Apple Day (Oct.),

Movie and Orange Day (Nov.), Hug Day (Dec.)

The 14th of Each Month...The 14th of every month represents a couple’s holiday.

The Couple RingAfter 100 days of dat-

ing, couples typically buy “couple rings” to publicly display their relationship. However, married couples typically do not wear their

rings after marriage.

Couple’s OutfitsWhile PDA isn’t very

popular amongst couples, letting everyone know that you’re a couple is. Matching outfits from

head to toe can often be found in public.

Celebrating Every 100 Days

Where as North Americans typically celebrate one-year (and two-year, three year,

etc.) anniversaries, couples in South Korea celebrate every

100 days. In fact, keeping track of the number of days since the first date is a com-

mon practice (“D-Day”).

Between: The New Couple RingBetween, which is now used by more than half of twentysomethings in South Korea, aims to provide the fundamentals of a ful-filled relationship by tackling memory and communication, and the combination of technology and couple culture of South Ko-rea has allowed Between to reach its poten-tial by becoming an integral and intimate element of relationships.

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Between is an app that provides couples “a beautiful space where you can share all your moments only with the one that matters.”

7.45 MMDownloads at

the end of May 2014 (Venture-

Beat)

510 Mins.Spent on the

app per month on average.

(TechCrunch)

1 in 5Couples in

South Korea uses Between. (TechCrunch)

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Do you want to Between?The use of Between in South Korea has shown that the app has embedded ideals such as trans-parency, trust, and monogamy through its plat-form.

In many cases, the common expression of “do you want to be my girlfriend?” is now replaced with, “Do you want to be my Between?”

“In April, while the K-pop super-group Girls’ Generation was con-ducting a backstage interview for a television show, the phone of one of the group’s members, Hyoyeon, emitted a telltale bloop - the sound that notifies a Between user that she has received a message from her beloved. Gossip sites lit up with the news: ‘Hyoyeon confirms that she has a boyfriend on TV broadcast!’” (“The Love App”, The New Yorker, 2013)

There’s a paradox implicit in products like Between

– technologies intended to help people regain what they’re losing because of

technology.

“The Love App,”The New Yorker,

November 25, 2013

74%“Couples, the Internet, and

Social Media,”Pew Research,

February 11, 2014

of adult internet users say the internet has had

a positive impact on their relationship.

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Date nights are great, but relationship experts say it’s

the little acts of kindness that matter more... An app

could make gestures like those a little bit easier.

“Why Don’t We Have a Monogamy

App?”The Cut, February

14, 2014

LESSONS FROM ‘HER’3/

What did a technology film about love tell us?What we learned more than anything from ‘Her’ was about ourselves as humans and how our personal re-lationships grow, all through a por-trayed relationship between Theodore Twombly, the main character, and Samantha, the operating system.

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“A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly purchased operating system that’s designed to meet his ev-ery need.” (IMDB)

Satisfaction Through TechnologyAs the relationship between Theo-dore Twombly and Samantha pro-gressed, we clearly saw the emo-tions that Theodore developed were real, which raises the question: How significant can interactions through technology replace certain constitu-ents for love?

26Photo credit: Her (2013)

Are We Already There?Although we won’t be finding A.I. op-erating systems on store shelves any-time soon, what ‘Her’ showed us is that a large portion of our needs in love can be satisfied with interactions through technology, and to some ex-tent, we’ve began to already see this through the increasingly popular demand of couple apps and the ways it has significantly helped with long distance relationships or couples with busy professional lives in a way that has never existed in the past.

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You & Me

AvocadoCouple

Between

[Technology] may mod-ify the way we go about

meeting our basic hu-man needs, but they don’t change our fundamental

human needs.

“Love in the Modern Age,” The Creator’s

Project, January 17, 2014

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I think that [Aaron Schildkrout, co-founder of ‘You & Me’] is

right. I’ve had some of my most emotionally intimate and hon-est conversations with friends and romantic partners on mo-bile devices. And while virtual

chats and hugs will never be the same as their real-world coun-terparts, they can come awfully

close in a pinch.

“I Had a Nice Time With You Tonight.

On the App,”The New York

Times, April 5, 2014

Any sort of love is what connects people to feel like

they exist.

Charlyne Yi, Musician/Writ-

er/Comedian

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Now with cultural observations from Tinder, Between, and ‘Her’ in mind, what’s the one takeaway about digital?

The conversation should no longer be about ‘traditional’

and ‘digital.’

31Photo credit: Andreas Paehge

Because digital has woven into

our everyday lives.

32Photo credit: Martin Pokorny

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Instead, we should think about how we can create for people who live in a world where both physical and digital exist on the same plane to satisfy our human needs.

34Photo credit: Jaroslaw Frycz

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By Trung Ho@trungho on Twitteror [email protected]

Inspired by

Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’ andLauren Collins’s ‘The Love App’

Resources

The Creator’s ProjectThe Cuteatyourkimchi.com‘Her’ (2013)Internet Trends 2014 (Mary Meeker)TechCrunchThe New YorkerThe New York Times