The Trust Gap

What has happened to trust in authority? And how will it change in coming generations((Zoomers, born late 90s to early 2010s, and Alphas following them))?This was what a client wanted to know on a recent consulting call. I thought it might be worth expanding on this issue here.

Trust in media

On the call with my client, I made an argument about distance. That we struggle to trust things that are distant from us, whether that is in terms of geography, class and wealth, or experience. In the last few years, we have arguably seen the distance between us in these dimensions rising. Just a few days later, I read the transcript of a debate between the journalists Matt Taibbi and Ben Bradlee Jr about the death of mainstream media. In his closing remarks, Taibbi talked about the death of local news across the US. He pointed out that the the journalists lost with local closures were much closer to their readers than the writers on the nationals. These exulted spaces are largely populated by a homogenous bunch: white, upper-class (in US terms), Ivy Leaguers.If these people share few of your experiences and values - religion, politics, culture, education - it's hard to connect with them. It is even harder to trust them. What do they know? They're likely based hundreds of miles from you. Maybe thousands. So you'll never encounter them. And they will never encounter you.

Trust in politicians

It was hard not to think about our own House of Commons when listening to Taibbi's description. Swap Oxbridge for Ivy League and you're pretty much there.The distance between government and the rest of the population can be measured in many dimensions. The first is geographic. Though we've seen moves towards devolution over the last twenty years, these have been offset by the gutting of public services at local level. The result, I would argue, is that power and spending have actually been further concentrated in London. Certainly, I think it feels that way to many.Europe may have been the target of many people's ire in the Brexit vote. But I think that was a proxy for Westminster in many cases. Easier and more appealing to believe your power has been taken away by some nebulous foreign entity than that it has been simply shifted to your own capital.And people's individual power has been taken away. Or rather the power and wealth imbalance has increased. Look at any measure of inequality in the UK and right now we are at or near 40-year highs, with the exception of the peak in the 2008/9 recession.This combination of disenfranchisement and disempowerment is one of the core theses explaining the rise of UKIP and Brexit, and Trumpism in the US, where similar phenomena are visible.

Trust in experts

If this distance in geography, power and wealth explains a lack of trust in media and politicians, what explains our lack of trust in experts? Particularly scientists. Through the pandemic I have been dismayed by the scale of conspiracy belief, anti-mask and anti-vaccination protests. I wonder if this doesn't also come down to some form of distance.This is just a theory, so take with the appropriate care. But it feels to me as if the gap between common understanding and expert knowledge has increased significantly over the last few decades. Take physics, for example. Most of the physics that powered our world until the digital revolution was Newtonian. It all operated within the bounds of things we could see and feel. If you could understand an explosion, you could grasp the basics of a combustion engine, or even a rocket ship. Now most of the physics that makes the headlines is quantum. And as Feynman said in 1965, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."((Note: this may not have been true even at the time. Lots of people understand quantum physics up to the level of our current understanding today. But it remains incredibly difficult for the layperson to grasp - and I say this from experience))Even though more of us than ever go to university - over half of the population - the gap between basic knowledge and expertise feels like it has widened. And perhaps this rise has only reinforced for some their sense of exclusion from knowledge? How must it feel to be in the minority, not going on to higher education?

Trust in each other

This education inequality is just one of many gaps opening up in the population. Culture has changed fast in the last few decades, accelerated by the low friction production and distribution of new media, services and products. Not only is there perhaps now a widening gap between the expectations of parents and their children, there is also the potential for an increasingly large gap between social tribes of any age((Note I'm not saying that either of these gaps are at all time highs. The experience gap between those who fought in the Second World War and their hippy children would have been pretty extreme, for example. But it doesn't matter: wide and widening gaps drive conflict.)). Don't agree? OK Boomer.Nonetheless, there are still things that connect us. Any despair in the state of relations can usually be undercut by a glimpse at the Public Health England data from last summer, showing how many of us cared for our neighbours in lockdown.

The future of trust

So, where do we go from here? I confess, I am not optimistic right now. I see no political, social, or educational changes on the horizon that might increase our levels of trust in authority, or in each other. Though at the same time, there are some trends that suggest we shouldn't be too worried.Despite all the stories of corruption, the current government did very well in local elections this week. You may or may not like them, or agree with them, but trust in politicians clearly hasn't been that damaged by recent events. At least not in relative terms.Likewise, for all the vocal distrust in politicians and scientists over the vaccine, uptake so far is over 95%. Only some of those 5% will have failed to be vaccinated for ideological reasons. Distrust only stretches so far.  

Is immersive entertainment the future?

The Rolling Stones are releasing a 'radical, new immersive concert screening concept' based on their enormous 2016 gigs in Cuba. So what is 'immersive entertainment', and is it the future?

Physical and digital

Going to a gig is immersive entertainment. It engages all of your senses, for better or worse. If you're screaming at your favourite teen idol or thrashing around in the mosh pit, you are 100% in the moment. This is true of almost any intense form of physical activity or engagement. It's why these things are so good for us: they take us out of ourselves, and focus us wholeheartedly on what we are doing.The very need to describe something as immersive entertainment is for me an acknowledgement that this activity might not be as consuming as such a physical experience. That somehow through effort, design, or technology, the provider is trying to make something that might not be truly immersive into an experience that matches these physical-world highs.In the case of the Rolling Stones concert, this seems to amount to a combination of best-in-class audiovisual systems combined with some set dressing and live entertainers. These things together will not transport you back in time and across the ocean to Cuba. But they are designed to create as close an experience as you can get in your local concert venue.Critical to the success of this endeavour, will be the response of the rest of the audience. If they get into it, and you are surrounded by people having a good time, singing and dancing, then it will probably be very successful. If they treat it like a trip to the cinema, then it's unlikely to be close to immersive.

Future options for immersive entertainment.

Today the state of the art for group entertainment is ultra HD projection. But in 10 years time? Imagine the same event, with everyone gathering in a concert venue. But instead of the images being projected on a flat screen, you can see a virtual Mick strutting up and down the stage. He is indistinguishable from the real thing, until you remove your smart glasses and he disappears.Maybe you decide to stay home and watch the gig, and your living room is transformed into the concert venue. You lose the live atmosphere, but drinks are cheaper and there are no queues for the toilet.Neither of these options will stand up to the real thing. But with concert prices high and access limited, these sub-experiences are likely to be popular nonetheless. In this age of deepfakes, concerts need not be limited to current or living artists either. Why not time travel and see Springsteen at the Hammersmith Odeon in 75 (that's where I'd go), Nina Simone in '64 (yeah, I'd also go there) or Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison (yep).

Experience economy

The idea of the experience economy is not new. It can arguably be traced back to the Tofflers' FutureShock in the 1970s. But it is true that a rising proportion of our expenditure is going on things we do rather than things we buy. In this world of FOMO, offering people the chance to get to a version of gigs that they missed - perhaps by decades - or couldn't afford to otherwise access, will likely prove popular. And in 10 years time, it might be the way that many of us experience live music.But the real, physical experience will always command a premium. Because for the foreseeable future, it will remain the richer experience and the only one that is truly immersive.

Convergence is not (only) the future of gaming

Hideo Kojima is a gaming legend. His plans to integrate gaming, film, music and more, formed the basis of a quick interview I gave this morning on the sofa at BBC Breakfast.It’s not a new idea that these different media might converge. In some ways it is happening already: look at the integration across the Marvel Universe where comic stories weave in and out of games, TV shows and films. Or how film promotion now starts with experiential games seeded around the internet. People have long considered ways to make the cinema experience interactive — a group ‘choose your own adventure’. And the natural conclusion of high-end games is total immersion in an experience of cinematic reality via VR.But I don’t think this is what Kojima is suggesting. Rather, what I interpret from his few words, is that a single, multi-threaded narrative might be explored through multiple forms of media combined in a single entertainment package.This makes a lot of sense with the convergence of entertainment delivery on a small number of devices: phones, tablets and streaming boxes. With some caveats, and the support of some high-end servers in the background, these devices are capable of delivering anything from a simple page of text to a rich VR experience.Why not utilise this breadth of capability to engage us in many different ways? It’s certainly one answer. But I don’t think this is the biggest opportunity in the future of gaming.The largest single segment of the gaming market, following years of rapid growth, is mobile gaming. Within that, the largest phenomenon in recent years is Pokemon Go. Though limited, I think this AR experience points to what will be the most popular and pervasive form of gaming.

Lessons for tomorrow

Imagine real life, gamified through the overlay of the physical world with digital sights and sounds. Virtual places, people, objects and creatures that you can interact with as though they were real. We’ve acclimatised to people speaking to themselves on wireless headsets. People running around the streets chasing Pokemon seemed to generate a lot more smiles and good will than criticism and questioning. I think we’ll adapt to people playing in the streets in their own virtual world — eventually.The revenue streams are certainly there to drive such an industry. Imagine an advert you have to interact with to win a game. Imagine that advert is a virtual character with a rounded virtual intelligence. This is a far cry from today’s billboards: this is hyper-targeted, totally personalised, and fully interactive.Whether you like the sound of that or not, it’s coming.