As I am continuing to research, I am finding it fascinating how principles of technology and technology’s integration into our lives has seemingly direct parallels with how we function as humans. I guess this isn’t that surprising considering we built technology through our own lens, and having systems and hardware that reflects our ‘human operating systems’ makes technology easier to interact with and easier to create.

Haptic feedback is a very good example of parallels between the internal signals that our brain sends to our body, and external signals sent to our brain. The most common example of haptic feedback is your phone vibrating when you press something for a longer period of time, or a game controller rumbling when you are experiencing impact in the game. These immediately generate a response and send an external signal to your brain, which incites a reaction or sensation, exactly as it would if you were to touch a bumble bee, for instance.

In simple terms, haptic feedback is a simulated sense of touch.

I feel that I want to expand this idea of simulated touch, as I feel as a metaphor it holds a lot of weight within the context of the concept I want to communicate. Artificial touch sensations will begin to become more immersive, more seemingly real, with the integration of types of haptic technology such as ‘Ultrasonic mid-air haptics’, which bypasses the need to actually be in direct contact with the technology to feel a simulated sensation, it occurs in mid air.

Such an extreme simulation will offer more immersion in the realm of virtual and augmented reality. I believe that simulated sensations are already completely integrated into our realities, just in more of a metaphorical sense. Advertisements, branding, the accelerated spreading of information – all of these are vehicles to drive the general population to feel familiar with products, services and ideas that are either don’t yet exist or are out of reach – simulated sensations.

And if haptic feedback simulates touch, then if you feel out of touch, out of place, alienated, then does the concept apply in the same way? If we reimagine our human condition as a machine that reacts to inputs and assembles an output based on what it has learned, then there is no surprise that a massive proportion of particularly the younger generations (25 and under) develop mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety disorder, as the unfathomable amount of inputs can create a situation where we feel out of touch and create our own internal haptic feedback loops – simulated perceptions of self based on what we interpret around us.

https://www.trio.dev/blog/haptic-feedback#:~:text=Haptic%20feedback%20refers%20to%20the,giving%20you%20a%20tactile%20response.