Stories are a great way to pass an afternoon. They are also a great way to learn. Digital story telling is something that has recently started to emerge, and aside from keeping the dissemination of stories in line with the times, it is also leading to some remarkable developments in how we use technology.
We should begin with the most iconic device of the modern age: the smartphone. This ubiquitous little pocket filler is everywhere, with a report from 2018 suggesting that there are more than 5 billion mobile devices in the hands of users. With the total amount of books published numbering just over 120 million (yes, that’s all the books, ever!) it becomes important that we port those books over onto the devices we carry with us everywhere.
Amazon has done just that. The outlet that began its life as an online book seller has, through its kindle software, changed reading practices for the better. Kindles, now Wi-Fi enabled with backlit screens, also have ‘flashcard’ features that enable readers to grow their vocabulary, allowing them to test themselves later on those tricky words so that they become part of their usable lexicon.
What’s even better is that Amazon kindle is now available as an app! All the books in your kindle library can be accessed on your phone, with bookmark and syncing features meaning that you don’t need to tediously swipe through the book on one device to reach the point you left off on another.
Beyond books, other, more immersive experiences have begun to emerge in our smartphone-obsessed world.
Apps are deploying stories through a gaming medium. They can be as simple as ‘Rory’s Story Cube’, designed to give kids slightly more control over the stories they create by making use of the picture dice, but through a smartphone.
For more capable readers, ‘My Child Lebensborn’ is a narrative focused game that uses real life events from history to bring players through the troubled existence of a socially ostracized child in 1950’s Norway.
The adults among us may like ‘The Silent History’, which takes immersive storytelling to a whole other level. Relying on GPS, the app directs you (the reader) to a setting like the one in the chapter you are reading. Be it a train station at rush hour, or a coffee shop on a campus – wherever the characters in your story may find themselves, so do you. Cities themselves become the story, and your location determines whether or not new chapters of the story can be accessed.
This example of the AR (Augmented Reality) in digital story telling promises great things for the future. Most notable is how it amplifies the sense of atmosphere by immersing the reader in the experiences of the characters, bringing you more deeply into the work. It also pairs reading with some light exercise, something we could all probably do with more of.
Beyond AR is VR. The escapism offered by this technology is nothing short of breath-taking. Vivepaper, a Shenzhen based company, keeps the pleasure we get from reading, while delivering it through a VR system. The text is generated through the VR headset and overlaid onto a paper-like material. To turn the page, the reader simply slides their finger along a raised track that mimics the feel of paper.
While Vivepaper is at present largely used as a marketing gimmick, its potential should have people wondering just how immersive the experience of reading using VR could become.
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Simon John
Cicero Group Limited
