Remember the last time you had to screen share during a call? Perhaps you were walking someone through a complex dashboard, or reviewing a document together.
In these moments, how often do we find ourselves asking "Can you scroll down?" or "Click there"?
These seemingly small interruptions highlight a fundamental limitation in how we interact online today.
🤝 The Current State of Online Collaboration
While the internet has revolutionized how we connect and communicate, there's a subtle but important distinction in how we experience shared content online:
When we say "we're looking at the same website," we don't even realize that we're using the word "same" differently than we would in the physical world:
- If two people look at the same physical book, they're literally sharing one object;
- But online, if two people look at the "same" website, they're actually viewing two distinct copies of the same content. There's no sharing there!
We've just become so accustomed to this that we don't even notice the difference.
This isolated paradigm made sense in the early days of the web, but as our needs for true collaboration grow, simply viewing separate copies of the same content is becoming increasingly restrictive.
Sure, we have powerful collaborative tools like Google Docs, Miro, and Visual Studio Live Share. These tools show us what's possible when real-time collaboration is built into the core experience. But these remain the exception rather than the rule.
The vast majority of our online experiences are still solitary, forcing us to rely on workarounds like screen sharing when we need to collaborate.
Enhancing User Experience Through Collaboration
There are so many opportunities to improve online experience through collaboration:
- Professional Settings: During code reviews, debugging sessions, and daily standups, teams constantly need to look at and interact with the same content.
- Social Interactions: Many group activities (e.g. planning a trip, or ordering food with friends) would benefit from real-time collaboration.
- Education: Teaching and learning become more effective when both parties can interact with the material simultaneously, ask questions to their peers or teachers, etc.
- Technical Support: When we're learning how to use a new tool, or helping a friend navigating in a complex cloud provider dashboard, we often end up jumping on a call to share the screen.
Every time we share our screen, we're missing out on a better collaborative experience.
The Human Element
People naturally seek connection and interaction, even in digital spaces. This is why social media platforms and real-time video conferencing have become so integral to our daily lives. We've also seen how collaborative experiences can create engaging and memorable moments:
- Reddit's r/place showed how millions of people could work (or compete) together in a shared digital space;
- Gaming platforms have long understood the appeal of shared virtual environments;
- Watch-together features on streaming platforms recreate the social experience of watching TV with friends.
💫 The Evolution Beyond Screen Sharing
Screen sharing was revolutionary when it first became widespread, but it's essentially a digital version of looking over someone's shoulder.
The next evolution is true collaborative interaction, where everyone can not only see but also interact with the shared space. It goes beyond just sharing the screen, and instead allows you to share the website.
Imagine:
- Rather than sharing a screen during technical support, users could allow the support person to guide them through it;
- Instead of watching someone navigate an e-commerce site, friends could add items to a shared shopping cart and even split the bill automatically;
- During team meetings, everyone could interact with project management tools in real-time, rather than having one person control everything;
Building such experiences is already possible, using libraries such as socket.io and React Together. This blog post explains how to easily add real-time collaboration to an existing React app, using React Together.
The Future of Online Collaboration
The success of platforms like Figma, Notion, and Google Docs shows that users are ready for — and expecting — more collaborative experiences.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work have accelerated this trend, highlighting both the importance and limitations of our current online collaboration tools.
As we move forward, we should expect to see:
- More websites incorporating built-in collaboration features
- New patterns and standards for managing multi-user interactions
- Enhanced integration between communication and collaboration tools
- Innovation in how we represent and manage shared digital spaces
Making the Shift
Every time someone shares their screen, it represents an opportunity for a better collaborative experience. Instead of working around the limitations of current websites, we should be building experiences that naturally accommodate multiple users working together.
The shift to collaborative-first experiences won't happen overnight, but the direction is clear. Just as social features have become expected in modern applications, collaborative features will likely become a standard part of the web experience.
🔮 Looking Ahead
The internet was originally designed to connect people and facilitate communication. As we continue to evolve how we use this technology, it's natural that our tools should better support working together.
The question isn't whether the internet will become more collaborative, but rather how quickly we can make this transition and what new possibilities it will unlock.
The next time you find yourself sharing your screen or asking someone to share theirs, consider: How would this experience be different if the website itself was designed for collaboration? The answer to that question points toward the future of the internet, one where working together online feels as natural as working together in person.
What about you? Have you ever felt this limitation with screen sharing? What's your perspective on this topic? I'd love to hear from you!
Happy day ☀️
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