Is telepresence a reliable substitute for face to face presence?

吉林广播电视大学 徐 萌

With the development of network technologies,people are no longer need to talk face to face;they can use telephone and internet.These telecommunication technologies develop very fast.It has already solved the problems of distance.In the 21th century,Telepresence can be a new style of communication technology.The advent of it gave people more chances to manage and enjoy their work and leisure time.According to Wijnand(2005,p.7),telepresence is a physical present at a remote location through interaction,user’s actions and the subsequent perceptual feed back via the appropriate teleoperation technology.In other words,telepresence is a new digital form of communication that offers a comprehensive and credible experience of being present at a distant site from one’s own location.This essay will discuss disadvantages and advantages of telepresence.

The first disadvantage is that telepresence is not an absolutely secure communication method.Nowadays,video conferences always depend on telepresence technology.Usually,such conferences are about important issues in commerce and politics within or between big companies.The content of the conversation must have high level of security.Telepresence is based on the internet technology which is an insecure environment.Some people may suspect that if the conversation is related to business secrets,the meeting will be protected.On the other hand,over relying on telepresence system and lacking communication in reality environment,all the things will lapse into logjam when the internet and medium have some problems.In any case,machines are not as trustworthy as people.

Another disadvantage is related to economy.It is a block of consumption.There is an interesting opinion that telepresence is a killer of a business class in global airline companies,because many business people travel to other places to meet their partners everyday.The money spent on air travel is very huge.Obviously,the advent of telepresence is a threat to the consumption of travel and the airline companies will lose huge earnings every year.It will not benefit the market economy.In addition,nowadays,online shopping has become more popular.It also relies on the telepresence technology.However,some people do not like to make purchases this way.They prefer go to a real shop to buy products and communicate with face to face.They think that “shoppers can not physically examine and try products before making purchase decisions as they can do in brick-and- mortar stores.”(Kun,Ann & Jihye,2007) It is true the viewpoint is justifiable.People like to check the quality of products before they pay for them.

Although telepresence has many disadvantages,it has a number of advantages.Telepresence has solved the problems of long distance communication which can not be achieved by face to face presence.“Multi-users can easily interact with each other in real-time via a high speed broadband connection for audio and video footage transmission on a large screen.” (CXOtoday.com 2007) It also saves a lot of money and time for users.In addition,it reduces pollution,including from cars and airplanes.It is constituted by advanced digital technologies and upscale teleoperation technology that realized talk face to face in a virtual reality environment.Nowadays,it is applied in many important areas.The following parts will mainly talk about three areas to explain the benefits and advantages of telepresence:companies’management,distance education and remote heath care.

First of all,for companies that have multiple offices and worksite based in different locations,telepresence t e c h n o l o g y c a n h e l p t h e m i n administrating and managing their offices easily.Meetings and discussions can be held between various offices and branches of companies at the same time and more frequently.Such arrangements can help companies operate business in a smoother and faster way.The traditional forms of meeting need all the participants to be present in a unified space.This can not only limit the location and the number of participants,but also reduce the efficiency of working.Most global companies use telepresence for business operations and get good effects.By using this technology,the businesses executives and top managers can save much time and money,which includes the travelling cost while moving from one office to another which possibly be in other countries.Also it can save a lot of money spent on landline and mobilephone calls.Thus,in the future,more and more people will adopt telepresence technology to replace face to face presence.

Having been adopted by companies’management,telepresence is also applied widely in distance learning.It provides teachers and students a real education in a virtual environment.“Telepresence can greatly enhance the effectiveness of distance learning by allowing students to take virtual field trips to distant locations and by connecting them with top-quality educators in the field.” (M2pressWIRE 2008) Teachers and students can stay in different locations and have a class by using advanced communication technologies.It is very useful for international education.Students need not to go abroad and they can get advanced knowledge and learn about foreign cultures as well no matter where they are.The students can save cost of travelling and living in another country.By telepresence,they can watch the teacher,hear the teacher and have communication with teachers.In that case,telepresence will be instead of face to face presence in education areas.

Finally,telepresence technology is very popular in a health care field.Nowadays,health care is being transformed around the world.“Prompting the demand for remote medicine is the belief that connectivity can bridge geographical distances,address shortage of services in remote areas and free hospital beds.” (Telepresence Industry Watch 2008) Telepresence,as a new kind of medical treatment,can be used for remote diagnosis.It is really convenient for patients and doctors.For instance,for people are involved in a traffic accident,doctors can use telepresence system to log on hospital’s server to receive the images of injured people and get the first-hand information of the accident.And then decide what surgery the injured people need and prepare a detail report which is useful for the whole surgery.Within a few minutes,all the things can be done.In the past,when such cases happened,doctors could only get the information of the injured and make a decision after they have checked these people.Thus,telepresence can save the rescue time and make the injured have a greater chance of survival.Some patients need go to other countries to see a famous doctor;they will save time and money in the process if they use a telepresence system.Remote diagnosis is a popular method which improves the diagnostic efficiency and maintains a good communication between doctors and patients.As a result,telepresence substituted face to face presence appropriately.

To sum up,from the above analysis,the rapid development of telepresence technology is an irresistible trend.Most mainstream industies will rely on it.However,it still has both advantages and disadvantages.In relation to disadvantages,telepresence is not absolutely secure and it will affect the ability of social skill,even it can reduce the consumption.On the other hand,telepresence technology is very useful for most industries.It can help people save a lot of money and time,can help improve the efficiency of work,can help reduce the air pollution,etc.In a word,the function of telepresence is very similar to face to face presence.Thus,in my opinion,telepresence will eventually replace face to face presence in manyt areas.Whether it is a reliable substitute for face to face presence should depend on the situation.But I think in the most cases,it is.In the future,more and more people will accept such technology and use it for many social activities.Actually,telepresence technology is not applied in individuals’lives in the present,because its system is too expensive and complex.However,there are some new ideas to solve this problem.With the use of this technique,the quality of people’life will increase.They will like to find a way to save time and money as well as improve the interactivity.Telepresence is their best choice;they can stay at home to enjoy their lives.

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