Thesis thoughts

So after a not-so-productive summer, I'm sort of back at square one on what I've been thinking as pursuing as a thesis topic. For awhile I've been batting around two separate ideas;

1. Is based around the development of elements of online communities, and socially whats based around them (more dealing with gaming communities such as MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) ie. World of Warcraft, EverQuest, City of Heroes, etc. as this is what I'm more familiar with and have experience in myself and has interested me for awhile).

2. Is the basis of marriage, delving into divorce rates and stuff revolving around the institution of marriage, to the changing definition of concept. Along with this is the reasoning on why people still move into this institution. The basis of my idea is commitment and whats around it, and can it still be achieved without the institution of marriage.

Both of these I've been super interested in as each have played some sort of role in my life one way or another. So I've been of the interesting aspects of each and I've came to a conclusion that both are relevant to human interaction, and have a basis of developing connection with one another. Although both are vastly different, I felt that both have many similarities in the regard of human connection.

So I guess what I'm interested and after is the basis of human connection through various means and medias. Technology has a huge role to play in this regard, it has changed the basis of human connection, it has developed less and less from actual human to human contact to this weird middleman of human to device to human connection creating a barrier and what I would sort of consider a bubble around ourselves. In regard to that it makes you think of into basis of human connection in institutions of marriage which I would consider to be one of the most interpersonal relationships, and going into things such as dating sites that brand themselves as being the "matchmaker" going off of personality traits and all that bs. Another aspect of the human connection is the basis of online communities to various different aspects of anonymity, avatars, aspects of voyeurism, deviance (closely relating to anonymity), personal image, etc. On this aspect I really feel its interesting in the gaming community because you have such a high volume of people, although what I suppose is predominately young to middle aged males (although this could vary depending on what type of gaming your talking about). Through this as well the connections made between people from different areas of the world.

Although when it comes to personal connection I do see it lending itself to something more interactive, I want to make it accessible as a motion project. Although first of which I need to figure out a question that can be solved by design. Shit.