IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015 - 67

anonymity. However, simultaneously, the robustness of
trust increased as people were able to track and learn
each other's identities. As phones became message
enabled, communication between people via mobile or
telephony technologies became more asynchronous.
This enabled people to communicate in a way that was
time shifted, sending messages out with no knowledge
of when they would be received or replied to, and/or to
retrieve messages sent to them at their leisure.

Social Automobiles
The Socially Inspired Car
The "Transition to the Socially Inspired Car" might be
titled the "Return to the Socially Inspired Car" as we
revisit and reinvent sociability through technologically
assisted transportation. Sociability has different forms
and at its foundation extends beyond our ability to communicate with one another to be social. Sociability is
part of our survival strategy as humans. To survive,
humans must remember (or at least be consonant with)
their dependence on each other for existence. Edward
T. Hall wrote, "Man and his extensions constitute one
interrelated system" [5]. As much as we'd like to separate that which is "social" from that which is in the environment, we cannot, for these are interdependent [6].
Cars and people are already part of a highly complex
interrelated social system that includes the infrastructure
that they are dependent upon. This interactive social system creates and maintains the systems that enable cars to
function: streets and road repair, fuel, rubber for tires, oil,
glass, metal, paint, and other industries combine to make
the idea of a running car possible. When one is isolated
in a comfortable car moving down a beautiful road, it is
unlikely that the social system required to make the drive
possible is even considered by the driver. If we add the
potential for synchronous or asynchronous message communication to that driving experience, we can see that the
interrelated social systems become even more complex.

PolySocial Reality
We have used PolySocial Reality as a conceptual model
to describe the global interaction context within which
people (and other connected agents) experience the
social mobile web and other forms of communication
[2], [7] (see Fig. 1).
One of the applications of PoSR is to represent multiple agents and the composite of their respective individual points-of-view (POV) with respect to the multiple
networks within which they are connected to other
agents. This helps us to understand how the local circumstances of agents relate to circumstances in other
locales they are interacting with (directly or indirectly)
over networks. A property of even simple networks
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is that each "node" has a different "experience" with
respect to the rest of the network - no two nodes see
exactly the same data. With multiple networks (e.g.,
corresponding to meta- and multi-graphs (Fig. 2)), the
contrasts in POV become even greater. There is no
direct way for a node to be aware a priori of what
additional networks connected nodes or other agents
might be a part of [8]. PoSR is the aggregate of information across networks. This information is not generally known or inferable by individual agents contained
within the networks. PoSR is based upon the core concept that dynamic relational structures emerge from the
aggregate of multiplexed asynchronous or synchronous
data creations of all individuals within the domain of
networked, non-networked, and/or local experiences [7].
As an interaction context, PoSR represents outcomes
with respect to cohesive sociability. Frequently there
will be an expanded social network, but parts of these
expanded social networks will be connected by weak,
single dimension attributes, leading to fragmentation.
Fragmentation within PoSR encourages individuation,
which makes it more difficult for humans to be social
(and cooperative) with one another, even as they effectively have a larger social network. While implementations continue to focus on individuated orientations,
this problem will be further compounded.
The more that people share common sources of information while interacting with each other, the greater their
capacity to effectively collaborate becomes. If they share
too few channels relevant to a common goal, there may be
too little mutual information about a transaction to interact
and communicate well collaboratively. Poor collaborative
interaction can lead to further relational fragmentation
with the potential to promote individuation on a broader
scale [9]. By changing the means that humans use to manage space and time in their daily routines, developers can
shift our experience from individuated user experiences to
enhanced sociability within a multi-user, multiple application, multiplexed messaging PoSR environment.
In an automobile we have multiple channels supporting multiple networks, sending and receiving communications - which may or may not be multiplexed, and
may or may not be synchronous - all while moving. This
activity can quickly add up andbecome overwhelming,
evidenced by the issues that have been the subject of
legislation around the world regarding behavior relating
to phones and driving, texting, and in some cases even
holding, a mobile device [10], [11].

The Connected Car
Imagine someone driving on the road in a "connected
car." They are being assisted by various on-screen windshield Augmented Reality (AR) applications that guide
them through traffic, map their route, and suggest places

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