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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.'"
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.
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.
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