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Are We Socially Ready For Wearable Computing?
An anonymous reader writes "Smart watches have arrived, and Google Glass is on its way. As early-adopters start to gain some experience with these devices, they're learning some interesting lessons about how wearable computing affects our behavior differently from even smartphones and tablets. Vint Cerf says, 'Our social conventions have not kept up with the technology.' Right now, it's considered impolite to talk on your cellphone while checking out at the grocery store, or to ignore a face-to-face conversation in favor of texting somebody. But 20 years ago, those actions weren't even on our social radar. Wearable devices create some obvious social problems, like the aversion to Glass's ever-present camera. But there are subtler ones, as well, for which we'll need to develop another set of social norms. A Pebble smart watch user gave an example: 'People thought I was being rude and checking the time constantly when I was really monitoring incoming messages. It sent the wrong signal.' The article continues, 'Therein lies the wearables conundrum. You can put a phone away and choose not to use it. You can turn to it with permission if you're so inclined. Wearables provide no opportunity for pause, as their interruptions tend to be fairly continuous, and the interaction is more physical (an averted glance or a vibration directly on your arm). It's nearly impossible to train yourself to avoid the reflex-like response of interacting. By comparison, a cell phone is away (in your pocket, on a table) and has to be reached for.'"
If you can't tell that I'm reading email, or surfing the web while interacting with others, that's a good thing. I don't want things intruding into my presence unless I ask for them though.
A Pebble smart watch user gave an example: 'People thought I was being rude and checking the time constantly when I was really monitoring incoming messages. It sent the wrong signal.'
I've got news for you. You're not sending a good signal when you check your phone for text messages during a conversation either. In either case you're indirectly but very clearly saying to the person standing in front of you that anything, including the time of day, a text message, or a facebook update is more important/interesting than what you are saying to me right now.
they're called pagers. I know now one but drug dealers and doctors wear them anymore, but they do exist.
I wear a pager for work and frequently have to wear it when out in public. I can turn the alert from audible to vibrate when I am in public. Most relevant to the issue at hand, it took me 1-2 years after I got my first pager to train myself to not automatically look at the pager as soon as a message/phone number came in.
In short, you CAN train yourself to not look instantly once you get it through your head that you are not expecting an urgent/emergency alert.
Similarly, hospitals are environments where, because of the ubiquity of wearable communication devices (ie pagers) it has become socially acceptable to read incoming messages almost anytime.
My conclusion is that these two forces will apply outside of the hospital/drug deal: people will learn to resist looking instantly at their watch or other wearable device unless they really are expecting something urgent and bystanders (many of whom will have wearables of their own) will grow to accept more frequent checking of such devices in the correct context.
Then maybe you should explain that to those people and they'll make sure they're not in your personal space. Problem solved!
Don't worry- the problem will solve itself. Keep checking your phone/smart watch for messages while conversing with others and before long you won't have to put up with people in "your personal space" any more.
You check your watch for incoming messages. You look at your phone to check the time.
So, it has come to this.
Have gnu, will travel.
I remember someone telling me once, he was one of the very first people who got a earplug/microphone for his cell phone and even cell phones were fairly rare. So he was apparently talking straight into thin air to someone who wasn't there, holding a conversation with them. Unless they spotted the earpiece and realized what it was, people thought he was certifiably insane. Today nobody would blink twice at that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I think it's all about the form factor, and Google has gotten it wrong with Google Glass. IMO, the best possible form factor for wearable computing is that of a wrist watch. Even in that regard, companies like Samsung have still gotten it wrong, and for the exact opposite reason that Google has gone wrong.
Glasses are essentially a display device. They should be an I/O type peripheral, but Google made them the heart of the system. They can't be anything but glasses, on your face, obvious to everyone, with a camera sitting there pointing at everyone, drawing suspicion about what is being recorded or what you might be seeing, etc. They should not be the core of the system, but a peripheral to be used only when needed for those specific functions.
Now take Samsung's watch. It SHOULD be the core of the system. It should have your CPU, storage, networking, etc, because it is a non-invasive device that billions of people are already used to wearing all day every day. It is the optimum form factor for having with you all the time everywhere you go (even while swimming, etc). But instead they made it a mere peripheral for their phones / tablets.
The watch should be the core of the system. You can do simple tasks with its small display, it can vibrate in different places (on the bottom of the band, in the watch, etc) in different patterns that could communicate a variety of things without any annoying sound effects (since it's on the wrist the vibration could be very light, unlike a cell phone which has to be felt through clothing, etc). Then if you need a bigger display, you grab a tablet IO device (a mere wireless peripheral for IO for your watch), or a device like Google Glass, or you simply output media from your watch to the nearest TV, etc.
Anyway, IMO I think everyone is getting it totally backwards when it comes to wearable computing devices.
Better known as 318230.
So now, I'm expected to do the consumer thing again by buying an over-priced, extremely fragile and unperfected new piece of tech. Thanks anyway, I'll pass on this 'magic'.
I've got a (ex)wife that won't fail to answer/reply to a text, even when driving. (Unless it's me, of course.) I've yelled at her many times for texting while driving, and she's gotten 3 very expensive traffic tickets for that so far. (Unless there're more I didn't find out about.)
Some people won't stop, it's as though it's wired into their brains and everything else is second if not third.
conversely you are in their personal space too. Pretty much if you are in the same space and if you are not strangers then ignoring them is pretty damn rude. you can always excuse yourself and then give your device your attention. Anything less is being pretty dickish however if you are in the company of someone similar to yourself then it may be acceptable. You must realise that a large majority of people would find your behaviour offensive.
To be fair smart phones are pretty good at queueing up notifications. friends can post things, email arrives, the phone is pretty good at keeping me informed with a brief tone to let me know something could require my attention. However the extra stage of bringing it out is a useful one as i get to choose when to respond.
Google glass and the pebble don't lend themselves to the idea of putting them away. kind of like bluetooth headsets are useful but unless you have a lot of calls coming in they are also putting the technology in front of the user. I think that really is the issue. As a user technology should assist but, some of these devices put the user as the peripheral to the device. That's not good, not good at all. I can see how some people can relate to the technology better than with people but i think they are in the minority. I could see work situations thou where google glass was a key part of how somebody works much like a 2 way radio can be a necessary part of somebodies working day.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Where are we going? Is this a borg society where people are going to be continuously plugged into some sort of network grid and that's the most important thing in the world?
.. not a human doing.
There are scientists and engineers pushing this idea of wearable computing because it seems cool. What we need isn't the opinion of scientists and engineers, we need to focus on philosophy. Adjust society for computer? Bah, what a load of hogwash. Adjust computing for society! Stop thinking like a computer engineer and start thinking like a human being
I wear a pager for work (hospital environment). When there, everyone knows exactly why I'm checking it immediately if it goes off. When there or elsewhere, I apologize for checking it by saying, "Sorry, I'm on call. I need to check this." Usually they ask if I need to take it. If I don't, I tell them someone else will get it (we blast to the entire group). If I do, I tell them I'll get it when we're finished. Yes, the stuff I work on is that time critical. 5 minutes can be, and has been, the difference between getting the parts I need that day and getting them back up, or them being down an extra day. I think the key is to tell your audience what's going on instead of just tuning them out.
Apparently the most important function of Google Glass is to summon "Internet Tough Guys" to post on Slashdot.
....with a bazooka!!"
"If somebody dares to wear Google Glasses without my permission I will shoot them in the face
I love the way you go from literally punching your houseguests in the face to complaining about people who lack social skills.
Shamelessly stolen from, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(film)
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should"
I will politely tell you go shove it. You have no right to tell me what I can remember or how I can remember it whether I see it with organic eyes or digital eyes, hear it with organic ears or digital ears and store it in organic memory or digital memory. You also have no right to tell me who can I share my memories with or how I share them whether with analog audio or digital audio, whether with analog transmission or digital transmission.
The rest of us will augment. First it will start with people that can't see or can't hear or can't remember things well, then it will continue to most of the rest of us. It's only a matter of time. Just like we augmented our skin with clothing, our feet with shoes, our brains with slide rules, then calculators, then computers, we'll do the same with sight, sound, and memory.
If you're not ready for that too bad for you.
That is one thing that really gets under my skin -- when I am visiting with someone (i.e., I took the effort to go over to their space, whether it is a co-worker's office, or visiting with family), and their phone rings. No matter what we're in the middle of talking about, that phone call always gets priority.
Hospitals still use pagers for one simple reason. They are 1000x more reliable than a text message. Pager system coverage areas are far larger and more saturated with signals than cell systems which are full of holes in coverage. The signaling scheme used in paging systems is more reliable and the frequencies used penetrate buildings better than cell signals.
I for one have no problem with you augmenting your eyes, ears and memory. I do have a bit of a problem with Google sharing your augmentations.
Honestly, I would have no problem with a wearable, even always-on camera. It's the Google's panopticon bit I have reservations with.
We're never socially ready for ANYTHING new. The process of building social norms around something can't start until after that thing is introduced. The implication, then (often made explicit by hand-wringers calling themselves "ethicists" or some such thing) that we should stop the thing until we ARE "socially ready" for is equivalent to pure conservativism -- stopping everything new.
It's great that we can be so connected, but ask yourself this: how urgent is that email from Amazon? Or that calendar invitation about a party next month? Are you living your life or just sifting through emails and instant messages? If you're on-call for your job, have a friend or family member in the hospital, or some similarly important event going on, then that's definitely a valid reason for interrupting a conversation and attending to your device. If you want to read emails while pretending to pay attention to someone, then perhaps face-to-face socialization isn't for you. While people *think* they can covertly read emails while holding a conversation, I've never met anybody that could actually do so. I've been guilty of trying that myself and realized how silly the whole situation is. Anyone trained in business or interpersonal communication will tell you the same thing: Pay attention to the person with whom you're speaking, or excuse yourself to read your emails.
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
"Right now, it's considered impolite to talk on your cellphone while checking out at the grocery store, or to ignore a face-to-face conversation in favor of texting somebody. But 20 years ago, those actions weren't even on our social radar."
Sure they were. Twenty years ago, if you were in line at the grocery store and rather than paying attention to checking out, you were idly standing there chatting with the person next to you, that would be just as rude as talking on your cell phone. And if you were having a face-to-face conversation with someone and abruptly stopped to turn and interact with someone else, that would be considered just as rude as abruptly stopping to text.
The rude behavior is the same then and now. Distraction, interruption, inattentiveness, and so on. All that's changed is that the technology has allowed the other person in the scenario to become a virtual presence than an actual.
Liberty in your lifetime
Seriously, though. My fellow workers and I refer to most folks walking by, obliviously texting away as "Pod-People". Many of them with ear buds (or even huge, bulky headphones) to emphasize their wanting not to hear you. People aren't truly in tune with proper social behavior with cell phones/smart phones and constant (albeit intermittent) communications now. If a device (any device) makes it even more of an attention hog than it has already become, then people are going to start walking into traffic (even more than they already do). Many people today are already texting people they are physically standing beside as a method of "whispering" things clandestinely, no matter how rude it really is. People are already getting fully absorbed in their smart phones to the point of not knowing how to hold a coherent conversation over a meal. All this will simply be compounded with the more pervasive devices. It's only a matter of time before Google Glass becomes outright illegal to use while driving. It's bad enough that people think that having their smart phone in their lap while driving is acceptable and considered safe, despite being illegal in many places. What is it going to take before people start taking serious offense at others' smart device use in public places? Not serving people while they are on their phone is a decent start. After all, how rude is it to be expecting someone else to give you proper attention to serve you, and you can't even be bothered to pay enough attention to get the amount of you bill right? Little wonder why many employers have effectively banned smart phone use while at work, particularly in the service and hospitality industry. How far will it go? Extremism exists, and will manifest itself on both sides of this topic. Mark my works: It Will Get Ugly!
I'm not "Recording" you. I'm "remembering" you. I just happen to either (a) have digital augmentation or (b) have equipment to read my memories (c) or both.
frankly, I think this is a meaningless question. What does "Socially ready" even mean? Society does not "prepare" for change. Change happens and then society adapts. Or more accurately, change happens, some people adapt, and children grow up knowing a new society that never didn't have that change and can't conceive of a world that didn't have it.... then they grow up to ask whether society is ready for the next change, which their children will grow up familiar with, and who will think their parents were silly, crazy, and overly paranoid for doubting.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Sometimes the "angry commuter horn" means you're drifting into their lane and half a second from side-swiping them... ignoring it is a bad idea in that case.
Once my "angry commuter horn" meant "I'm hauling a load of cinderblocks, it's 10 degrees, and some psycho sprayed water on a steep downhill slope heading to an intersection"
Trust me, that wasn't a horn you wanted to tune out.
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