Recently a professor asked me if I would wear Google glasses.
But wait. If you haven't heard about Google glasses or seen this video (or its parody), then here's a summary: Google glasses glue augmented reality onto your face. If you were to dissect your mobile phone and solder all its parts -- camera, video, GPS, texting, face chat, voice commands and so on -- into headwear (and assume they still worked), that's Google glasses. So far they're available only to beta testers, but the question will be real soon enough:
Will you wear them?
I say no, for now. Google glasses have to do a lot more than mimic a dissected phone for me. Like a lot of people, I'm unsure how right this whole cyber-world is anyway. Lately, I've been trying to avoid technology, and I'm not alone. One study found teenagers are suffering "Facebook Fatigue," which explains itself.
Clever right? So bored with Facebook we're forced to shut it off and do something else. I'll confess I have some Facebook Fatigue. But I like the fatigue, want the fatigue, embrace the fatigue. Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker.com reports this month that checking Facebook just once in a 15-minute period can kill your focus.
Once. Reading this blog at work probably does the s..... Well, nevermind.
Forget that part. Carry on, happy reader.
The past month, I've put my laptop to sleep more often than not, hoping to regain touch with the offline world, partially to see if one exists. (The only time I can think I don't use Internet is while traveling, vacationing or working -- and not always then.) I've wound up reading a lot of books and magazines, writing a few thousand words and upping my workout duration. But I'm not sure I'm any better off. Is rapidly consuming a book really better than surfing Twitter for a batch of smaller stories, ultimately? I question if I'll be more enlightened in the long-term.
Grill me about the details of books I read 15 years ago, after all, and you'll get a blank stare.
How permanent is what we consume anyway?
Two scholars, Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown, write that our tools influence how we live, that technology becomes invisible, weaves into our day until we forget about it. Tools become extensions of ourselves. Light bulbs become our eyes in the dark. Pen and paper capture our thoughts and, if that weren't enough, share those thoughts across generations and geographies. Clothes become how we look, who we are. I don't mean to get fancy. The bottom line is a question:
What happens when you get rid of all that technology?
Think about it. If I reject Google glasses, why not reject all tools? Sure, I'd be pretty naked.
But isn't nakedness, incidentally, a state of profound focus? When you're holding the person you love in bed -- while naked, yes -- and you have no tools to help, are you ever more driven to behave like your best self, to say the most truthful sentences, to listen your hardest, to love your most sincerely? Maybe your focus would skyrocket if you moved to the floor or, better, the lawn. Get rid of all technology: the bed and so on. Don't use speech. Grunt. I bet you could focus like a sharpshooter.
That technology-less state seems the way to go for deep focus.
You and I probably can't walk around naked though. Nor can we give up on all tools so easily.
Many of us need phones like we need beds and clothes. So we walk a tightrope: technology on one end of our balancing pole, lucidness on the right, and perfect balance beneath our toes. But we have to know we're on the rope. Awareness is key. The fact we've named "Facebook Fatigue" suggests we've got at least hope for awareness.
Despite all this, I'm still finding my balance. Probably won't ever leave the rope. I don't think adding Google glasses to the left side is the right move, but then, I don't know either. So I leave it to you: Would you wear Google glasses?
Follow Sarah Alban on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SJAlban
Dax Hamman: Thought 3-D Was Cool? Welcome to Augmented Reality
Google 'Project Glass' Glasses Will Be Available For Users With ...
Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses - NYTimes.com
Wearable Computers: Google Glasses Alternatives | Video - ABC ...
For "Focus", instead of getting naked and pretending you're a cave man, how about trying this instead: convert your use of technology to a pull-based approach (as opposed to push-based, which you are probably using now).
With a push-based approach, everything is pushed to you via smartphone alerts, notifications, etc. Every five minutes, something happens! And you have to react to it. Corporations love this because they can force you to hit their sites, generating page views (and income). And as you've noticed, it can drive you nuts.
But with a pull-based approach, you turn OFF all your notifications from social sites, you set up your phone so it doesn't disturb you unless you're receiving an actual phone call, and once a day when you're not busy, you manually check your email, messages, etc. There is nothing being sent to your phone that is so important it can't wait a few hours. What you gain is complete peace and quiet, during which you can use technology to benefit YOU.
It's all in how you use it.
"Well, that sounds like a good idea. What do you want to use it for?"
"I thought it would be helpful for writing documents but I think I might even want to get on"- She paused and waited to get my full attention before revealing her truest wish. "The internet." It was a faint voice filled with excitement and a wish to be a part of something so rare that it would put her in a new league of mischief. That was my mom, cutting edge in 1995.
"Why on earth would you want to do that?"
If you think about it, almost every purposeful action people do is done to direct attention. A good way to think about something, the Greeks found, was to take a walk. A purposeful action done to direct an attention. But now we are bombarded with things which direct our attention, at times seemingly for us. It's what the economy is based on. Who can command enough attention to instill desire and want.
And while the amount of information might become infinite, our attention to each individual piece becomes infinitely less-and-less. So-much-so, that perhaps it becomes as if the information were not even there.
But...at the same time. Part of the human reality is imaginary, and this type of technology enables an extraordinary ability to INTERACT with that imagination. However, the dangers seems to me comes when you become so immersed in the delusion, you forget about who's paying attention to it. That is, who's paying attention to the delusion. And what else you might be paying attention to otherwise.
So Who's the one listening? Who's the one paying attention?
If the technology lives to its truest potential, it's a major part of sustainability. Light bulbs no longer needed. TV gone. Computers, phone, tablets etc obsolete. Team that up with wind, solar and whatever else, then blowing up mountains is a shameful part of the past. Making unfortunate leaky pipes from Canada will seem silly. Digging holes in oceans to release dangerous and explosive toxins won't seem as urgent.
It's a great future for humanity, but the only thing missing to date is: the damned release.
Not only the software will need to be vastly improved, but necessary infrastructures (cultural, physical and digital) as well.
Augmented reality and the cloud is where the industry is moving towards, and the technology, although currently half-baked, will definitely lend a hand to disrupting how we interact with the digital world. Imagine staring at a magazine, and with imbedded QR/NFC, a video will pop up detailing the content. How about sitting down at a restaurant, and by scanning through the menu, you can easily gauge the popularity of a certain dish through integration with Yelp or Oink? Although pulling up digital content with QR is existent today, how many people actually will take out their cell phone to scan? When you are walking on the street, how often will you do the same for something you see on the billboards?
Improving accessibility to the data world, and allowing us to be more interconnected with the internet, should never be looked at in disdain.
New tech will be too expensive at first.
New tech notoriously has too many 'bugs'
Likely too distracting for doing anything else a the same time--like driving.
Would try them on in store if possible.
Would not likely buy them any time soon, if ever.
Google glasses look like a potential disaster to me. They may evolve into something that works, but it will take years for that to happen. In the meantime, early users can enjoy the eyestrain, headaches and horrible car crashes that result from using the things before they get all the problems straightened out.
Especially last paragraph.
But as far as the car goes, they do plan to make cars that drive themselves. Self-directed robots are old technology so that's not a difficult task.
But in the context of self-directed vehicles, being run over while texting is not as likely. Emotions on the road would be gone. Drunk drivers will have both less and fewer impact(s) with/on pedestrians or other drivers.
Also, for those of us who made it into the 21st century, don't we want to see a difference? I mean people who were born in the late 19th century got to see people go from strict horse and buggy and home candles to cars and electricity. There has to be a distinction between the two.
They are made by Google.
Google is Evil...
Only one quibble. More and more companies allow telecommuting, and professional bloggers can work in isolation. A terrible thought, but these people can be both entirely naked and entirely wired and online at the same time!
1. Is it cheaper than what it replaces? Probably not
2. Is it as small in scale as what it replaces? No
3. Does the work it performs clearly and demonstratably better than what it replaces (smart phones)? No.
4. Does it use less energy than what it replaces? Probably not.
5. Does it use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body? No.
6. Is it repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence provided that he or she has the necessary tools? Absolutely not.
7. Is it purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible? Yes.
8. Does it come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair? No.
9. Does it replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships? Yes. Why ask a neighbor for directions when you can see them in your visual dashboard?
I think I'll pass on the Google Glasses.