Are Human Beings Fundamentally Individual Or Communal Animals

Human beings are social animals. We want to be in the visitor of friends or family unit and share our lives with them. We want to talk about the minutiae of our lives: what we had for dinner, the commute to piece of work, etc. as much as we practise about the big things in our lives. Let's take a look at the brain and see how social behaviour "comes nigh". By getting a firm grounding of this dynamic, you'll have fresh insight into how you blueprint for your usership.

Social Capacity is an Evolved Capacity

The very outermost layer of the man brain is chosen the neocortex. If y'all take a human existence in a social setting and utilize a Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRI) to scan his/her encephalon – you'll observe that the neocortex is where all the action is. When you compare the neocortex in human beings with the neocortex of primates (monkeys, gorillas, etc.) y'all can see that the human neocortex is a lot bigger than that of any primate. In curt, our brains evolved to deliver a social capacity.

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It'due south quite important to know that while specific areas of the encephalon, such as the neocortex, are responsible for specific tasks, they don't operate in isolation. All parts of the brain piece of work together.

Why Did We Evolve that Capacity?

Without an enhanced sense of social awareness, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for human being beings to cooperate on the scale that they do. It is our capacity for cooperation that has enabled united states of america to rise to the top of the food chain on earth. Human beings are weaker than many predatory species. For case, a human being cannot outfight a panthera leo at least without exceptional training, skill and a lot of luck. A group of man beings can hands take on a panthera leo and wait to win.

Why is this Important?

One of the strongest capacities of a social creature is its power to communicate. Wherever yous go in the globe, you'll see groups of people gathered together to share ideas, grab up on trivia and engaged in all forms of communication that are currently technologically possible.

"Communication leads to community, that is to understanding and mutual valuing."
— Rollo May, American Psychologist

That urge to communicate leads united states of america to adapt technology to communicate with, likewise. When the printing press made its debut in Europe circa 1440, its purpose was to create copies of books at an affordable toll. Yes, copies of the Bible rolled off first, merely a more far-reaching outcome was to arrive with the new technology. Within a short while, people were printing notices on the press and distributing them in public places. Printing didn't but mean we could share knowledge; it meant we could communicate with more people and more than easily than we could earlier. Instead of having to become round your village and discuss a new idea with anybody, y'all could leave the idea on a church doorstep or the wall of an inn and let people come dorsum to you.

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The printing printing was invented to promote communication—specifically, to reduce the prices of books so that anyone, who could read, could admission the thoughts and ideas inside.

No-one ever intended the telephone to become a device of mass advice. The original telephone was supposed to be a clever replacement for the telegraph. Yous could get to an office and for a considerable fee send a message to someone elsewhere in the country. One operator would speak to another, who would record the message then laissez passer information technology on to the recipient.

Then businesses started to realize that they could do good from a straight telephone service but still the telephone companies weren't focused on the mass market. It took a lot of pressure from the public earlier they became commercially available for installation in whatever habitation.

The Internet brought east-mail, and information technology was Hotmail which brought email to the masses. At present yous could send a message to anyone, anywhere whenever you wanted to. Adoption of e-mail was incredibly swift, even faster than adoption of the phone.

The ultimate evolution of the social realm for the Internet was the social network. MySpace arrived nearly 15 years after the Internet began. It may seem hard to believe, simply Facebook really only began taking off internationally at the outset of 2007. About anybody y'all know will have a Facebook business relationship. Information technology'southward an incredible attain for a recent invention. Advice sells. As we are social creatures, it's what drives u.s. forward.

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Information technology's hard to imagine life before Facebook... even though Facebook just really began rolling across to take the planet by storm in 2006 or then.

Why Does This Affair to Designers?

This all matters to u.s. every bit designers because if y'all can notice a mode to enable better communication, you can drive usage and purchasing behaviour. This may exist straight, as with the design of the telephone – people bought telephones and used them because they found them useful. It may also be indirect, as with Facebook – where users exercise not pay for services, but advertisers pay for services considering it enables them to communicate with users of the service.

The Take Away

Homo beings evolved every bit social animals, and with that development of social behaviour came the need to communicate. Devices that take facilitated advice accept tended to produce far-reaching, and sometimes unexpectedly successful, furnishings. Products that drive our ability to communicate with each other can accept a huge advantage over those that don't. Communication is a key need, and coming together it can be a powerful way to gain users and customers. With that in mind, aim to comprise this observation into your output as much as you tin can. The more you tin link people together, the more you lot can make whatever y'all're offer accessible to a global marketplace where, mayhap, anybody can talk nearly information technology.