Gamifying Love
Meaningful love tends to happen in person. Two people in close proximity for significant periods of time. And in isolation from others in their life.
- Facebook celebrates how long people have been friends, regardless of if they have ever met in real life.
- Google knows who bought what in a physical store, via the GPS in our phones cross-referenced with credit card data. Yes, really (USA).
The technology already exists to determine who we love, based on time spent with them. And, yes, it is easy to exclude family members, housemates, customers, nightclubs, work and sport colleagues by using machine learning or participants just naming people and places.
The downside is that illicit love or secret love could be outed, so some sort of switch is needed (like powering off your phone during your regular Tuesday lunchtime romp).
The upside is we can prove how much we love someone, even someone we wouldn’t love natively.
Facebook/Google:
Rob has spent 40 minutes this week in close proximity, one on one, to complete strangers. He gets a yellow heart badge.