HANNAH SECKENDORF

It’s clear that the internet is in desperate need of third places. And the most hopeful experiments might just lie in VR, AR, and gaming. Each of these promises a shared reality and shared presence — the two core pillars of ‘hanging out.’ These mediums have the ability to return relationships to shared spaces and experiences, rather than fracturing them across the atomized voids that define texting, emailing, video-calling, and social media. They lend us a much needed movement away from social media (speaking broadly, of any human-turned-text, -image, or -video) to social interaction — the backbone of a successful hang out.