World Building Project

Our world: a world where batteries were invented but technology inhibited their ability to become pocket sized.

In other words, all batteries are car battery sized.

Technological advancement still occurs, due to the electrical grid. Devices such as laptops and smart phones still exist, but portable capability, due to battery size, have not been achieved.

This is manifest in many ways:

Personal Devices

Few people in this world carry around electronic devices without some sort of plug to “hook in” cable to the power grid. People usually carry one or two of these “hook in” cables along with their personal device. Additionally, there’s a plethora of electrical sockets in most fixed structures.

The average amount of sockets in most homes.

Most schools discourage laptops due to the massive quantities of outlets needed to support thousands of students.

Portable photography and videography is entirely analog. Even many film cameras are not used due to the need for a large, cumbersome battery. Analog cameras are relatively large and expensive.

Advances Towards Greater Electronic Portability

Stylish backpacks, briefcases, and handbags to lug around batteries have hit the market, but aren’t widely popular. Many luxury cars have a “hook in” slot so that laptops are able to charge.

    An ad for a sleeker looking computer.

Consumer Market Changes

Since batteries are large and expensive, almost all the batteries that are sold are rechargeable ones. Batteries’ infrequent use led to the emergence of battery recharging businesses that perform the task at a decent price. Most customers don’t know much about recharging batteries, and view the task as getting an oil-change.

An ad for a recharge business.

It’s common practice for restaurants or coffee shops that expose their outlets to only allow paying customers to access them. Some will competitively offer free “hook ins” to anyone.

A sticker in a competitive restaurant's window.

Social Impact

When compared to a world where people whimsically communicate over 4 or 5 time zones, the methods of electronic communication are far less frequent, and much more deliberate. It’s rude to not check one’s answering machine.

The grid and “hook ins” allow for text messaging, use forms of social media, and play video games, but the limited portability cuts these communications down severely.

As alluded to earlier, social photography (such as texting images to friends, or using snapchat) is very different than it is in our world. Many people do not have the physical strength to take selfie after selfie when their camera is tethered to a 25lb weight.

As a result of not being able to capture a moment, send it electronically to someone else, and then forget about it, people have better memories in social arena. On average, they remember names better, phone numbers, birthdays, and events. It’s easier for them ignore other perspectives, feel left out in their society, or become hermits in front of their fixed electronics.

Ideology

These people live where they are through their own lens, not through an artificial lens, making images with others in mind. Many connect with Sean O’Connell from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’s quote: “If I like a moment...I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just stay in it.”

Objects have meaning because personal interaction is crucial.

A third party experience (an individual, a camera, then a viewer) becomes obsolete and the world is viewed through the first person. The world is not a construct of pixels and code, but a physical, tangible, powerfully meaningful experience.

In Design Fiction, Julian Bleeker states, “Objects are totems through which a larger story can be told, or imagined or expressed. They are like artifacts from someplace else, telling stories about other worlds.”

But in the end, as is often times concluded, human ingenuity is the motivating factor in all things. Systems are human, and humans are systems.