In some ten years from now, social media could significantly change for the better. You wouldn’t need to strain your fingers to type things into structure or type the uniform resource locators in the browsers, or bear with annoying communications about useless products. In the future, social media will be easy and in all places.

The mind reading technology is one such technology that will make our lives (social media lives) very easy. Controlling an interface without using your fine motor skills will have huge implications for human computer communication. Imagine being able to tweet what you are thinking without having to pick up your phone, key in your message and hit send. Also, by just thinking ‘Facebook’ your screen will show a summary of your friend’s action stream.

How the system works?

The new mind-reading system works by displaying letters on the computer screen that flickers one at a time. When a person thinks of a letter, and then that letter flickers on the screen, brain waves propel a signal to the computer that it identifies. While this form of communication is at a very experimental phase and is also quite slow, it does work for sending short messages such as tweets for Twitter. Twitter messages are restricted to only 140 character limits, and you really have to think hard about what you want to say. However, with mind reading technology thinking is all that you would require.

This new form of communication is currently meant to help people who have restricted motor skills, and not lazy social media fanatics! There is also a scope of applying this technology to senses other than vision. In the future, this technology can also help read feelings and complex emotional states. And one day people who cannot otherwise communicate will eventually interact with the outside world.

Whoever said mind reading was impossible are in for a pleasant surprise!