To the person that said Web 3.0 is a gimmick…
It’s Sunday morning brunch and I’m doing my casual scan through LinkedIn when I see a pretty negative post about Web 3.0 being “a gimmick”. It was interesting reading peoples’ reactions to that post. My own immediate reaction was that I felt like the person didn’t really understand the full breadth of possibilities that Web 3.0 can provide and so it took a lot of discipline for myself not to respond. But, we all see emerging possibilities through our own lens of life experience and our risk appetite and so I respect the validity of that person’s opinion. It’s just that sometimes (and me included) we need to recognise that we don’t know what we don’t know. So rather than share my views through responding to the post, I thought I’d take a more considered approach and write a quick article on how I see Web 3.0.
My perspective on Web 3.0 is probably a little different to most. I understand the connection with blockchain/crypto/digital assets etc., but what I’m hoping this next version of the internet brings is an evolution to learning. The evolution being supported by web3 so we understand the content has come from a trused source. But also for it to be delivered in a manner that uplifts society in a more equal manner.
This more equal perspective stems from the beginning of my career when I learnt about the VARK modalities by Fleming and Mills (1992). VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read/write, and Kinesthetic which are different sensory modes that we use to learn and understand information. When I started implementing digital change, back in 1998, I realised how differently people learn and quickly figured out we need to cover every aspect if we want to uplift an entire business. After all, we are all different so why wouldn’t we learn differently too.
Learning is a really personal thing to many people. I think the reason for it is we often feel if we don’t understand something straight away, or as quickly as others, that we are failing or lack a certain ability. I certainly felt that way growing up. I always felt like I had to work harder to get my marks than others, and that I always went about it in the trickiest or most back-the-front way….but I had to, my brain just didn’t work the same way as most. Today as an adult I’ve learnt to embrace that difference and actually love it. But it has taken me a long time to figure it out and is something I’m super passionate about. I want people to realise their learning potential and understand that our brains are magnificent things and that we are capable of a lot more than we think. So how does this all link to Web 3.0?
Connecting VARK modalities to iterations of the web
Read/Write
The web has helped us progress across the world. It first started with sharing information, which is the read/write portion of the VARK modalities. The internet had no graphics and no audio it was just text being shared on the World Wide Web for anyone to experience. Our learning evolved as the information became available to everyone who had the ability to connect to the internet, and to read. Research developed quicker as we could publish and share information quicker than publishing papers or writing books. The world took a leap forward because we had information available for us to consume quicker than the traditional published forms.
Visual
The next iteration of the web included the visual modality. This is where imagery was added to text and web pages started to help us consume information. The world started to make more sense. No longer did we need to comprehend the written form and imagine the images, we could now piece it together with images to confirm our thoughts. Our learning ability was growing as we could share and learn from the the combination of written and visual material. The internet turned into more pictures to explain things and helped speed up our learning. The addition of imagery also helped AI learn. Google’s knowledge graph is a great example of how the combination of words connected to images so that when we completed a search we could pick if we wanted to read or look at the images. Our world had taken another leap forward because that information turned into knowledge quicker.
Aural
The next version of the web was the aural modality. Which we are absolutely saturated in at the moment. It is where podcasts and videos help us learn. I’m sure all of us have learnt a thing or two from a YouTube video, so much so that I bet you’ve searched how to… via your search engine more than you’d like to admit. It is certainly my go to for understanding how to fix a recipe that just isn’t turning out right, or how to change a setting in my car that is taking me forever to search for in the ‘smart’ manual. But the one thing the current versions of the web simply haven’t supported until now is the kinesthetic – how we learn by tactile interactions and doing the tasks ourselves.
Kinesthetic
The kinesthetic version of the inernet is currently forming. Some suggest that Web 3.0 will enable the development of this iteration as the investment into this type of content is significant. Which means creators will not invest unless they keep the ownership of their content to develop a return on their investment. This suggests that our internet needs to be supported by a backbone such as Web 3.0 rather than the current platforms that offer free posting or hosting but they own your content. But why do we need the kinesthetic version and how might it be expereinced?
I know today we are becoming more aware of diversity but diversity in learning is one area that isn’t often discussed or understood. We have so many people across every age group and every vocation that struggle to learn new things and therefor push back on change. Change fundamentally shakes their world because they are scared of having to learn something new and being seen as a failure if they don’t understand it. These people, more often than not, are the kinesthetic learners. They just learn better by doing the tasks with their own hands. I expect we all know of people like this, or are even like this ourselves, there would be millions across the world.
Now imagine how much of an impact our world would experience having those millions of people learning via Web 3.0. Imagine how much more we could achieve and how quickly we could advance as a community. Web 3.0 has the potential to enable a new level of learning that is quicker, easier to understand, and instantly tangible. No longer will people feel like an inadequate learner because all of the learning tools will be right there for them. A connected network of learning resources where diversity is embraced and equity is realised.
Digital Realities for Kinesthetic learners
It sounds great doesn’t it?! A place where if I wanted to learn to do something I would simply try it virtually before I tried it in real life. A place where all types of digital realities combine to make it easier to comprehend something. Those digital realities come in five different forms to embed ourselves into environments.
Projected Reality (PR)
Real world with digital overlay onto a physical surface. The real world/physical environment remains the same and light/sound etc. is projected onto a surface.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Real world with digital information overlay. Real world remains central to the experience and is enhanced by virtual details that popup in front of the user.
Augmented Virtuality (AV)
Real and the virtual are intertwined. Interaction with and manipulation of both the physical and virtual environment.
Virtual Reality (VR)
Completely digital/virtual environment. Full synthetic/artificial experience with no sense of the real world.
A few examples of this from a learning perspective are, I could conduct a virtual worksite inspection and the contractor could take me through why they constructed something differently by simply pulling it apart virtually and showing me. I could learn to do maintenance around my house as I could have a virtual plumber helping me change out the s-trap for p-trap under my sink. I could work with the furniture store by virtually showing them my house and have them explain to me how to best use my space as they virtually walk through my house with me. I could even have an integrated water engineer virtually show me how water travels through our urban environments and how to decide on the best way to manage infiltration. The possibilities are simply endless when we think about all of the digital realities and how they are connected to a new form of the internet.
So maybe next time when you hear about Web 3.0 and you think it’s just another gimmick think about it as the backbone to the a new trusted internet. Think about the child with ADHD that has high sensory challenges and how they must feel in a class where their type of learning isn’t possible. Think about that friend that has dyslexia and struggles to read through the training material, getting stressed having headaches and simply preferring to learn from you. Think about all of those people that feel like an alien because technically they are smart enough but they just don’t have the same learning abilities. Our world needs these people. We need them because they have skills our society is missing out on.
So to the person that wrote the post that helped me write this article, thank you. I have been thinking about this topic for a long time and you helped me get it out of my head and out there for others to see.
For the rest of you I’d love to know what you think about Web 3.0, do you think it’s the next big leap forward for our society too? Gosh I hope it is…my fingers are crossed.
2 thoughts on “To the person that said Web 3.0 is a gimmick…”
Hi Belinda
Completely agree with your statement.
I am introducing this to Facilities Managers but some are not up to speed as quickly as web 3 would like.
Are you going to Future place Sydney?
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=zsfheyiau9X
Hi Ian,
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
Unfortunatly I won’t be attending Future Place Sydney due to other commitments. I hope it goes well.