FRAGILE: Human Glass
“Your face is always glued to that screen! Can’t you put it down for one second?”
I can’t express how many times I’ve heard my mom squawk this at me.
And by screen she means the Iphone, laptop, iPad, or T.V. screens that have become so intertwined in the lives of Generation X.
I always shrug her off when she says it, because, no mom, the screen isn’t always glued to my face. But with the recent release of the Google Glass commercial, I’ve been asking myself, what if it was?
What if we are literally going to be wearing those screens on our faces?
Look around you next time you’re at a concert and notice how many people have their phones out and in the air (yes, this means that you’d have to look away from yours for a second to notice this). At times, it is more than half the crowd.
Instead of immersing themselves in the music, tuning in to the vibes of the crowd, or even smiling and using body language to nonverbally communicate with their fellow concert-goers, people stand (maybe sway a little) like zombies and let technology do all the fun stuff.
People feel compelled to document and video every experience so fully that I dare to ask…are they really experiencing it at all?
Google Glass, which will move that screen from your fingers to your face, means you never stop documenting. What you see and what your screen records merge as one.
Does this eliminate the need for truly remembering your experiences at all?
Is part of the beauty of human memories that they fade with time? I’d like to think that when you look back, the minor details fall away and what’s left is those poignant, beautiful moments that were strong enough to imprint on your mind forever. I wouldn’t choose to watch a 85 year digitally recorded stream of my life.
Okay, so we’ve discussed the aspect of your screen seeing what you see, but how about the flipside: you seeing everything your screen sees.
Will people become so close to experiencing things because they’re happening right before their eyes in such vivid, realistic detail that they will lose the desire to have the experiences themselves? Do you put on your glasses and “jump” out of a plane through the eyes of someone sky-diving or do you go out and take the risk?
Image courtesy of google.com/glass
Let’s bring it closer to home. Say your walking across the Plaza of Americas and unbeknownst to you, your soul mate is just feet away. Will you miss a chance to lock eyes with this beautiful person because there is an image flickering on the top of your lenses?
We are constantly texting while surfing on our laptops while the T.V. hums in the background. Slowly we have adapted to using more technology at once to satisfy the craving for more and more stimulation.
Once there is the option to have a screen attached to your face will it be enough to have a technology-free personal conversation with someone, or will your brain start to crave the extra stimulation?
With our digital persona on Facebook, photographs on Instagram, and moment by moment thoughts on twitter, we share everything. Privacy has become more of a “setting” than a tangible concept.
Is the next step of social networking letting other people access the world that you perceive through the screen of your eyes? Could it get to the point where you are living so much in someone else’s life or showing others so much of your own that our separate identities are muddled and lost?
The questions seem endless, and frankly, pretty scary. From this vantage point, I can’t say I know any of the answers.
But as humans hurtling through a technological world, we owe it to ourselves to ask these questions, ponder about the implications, and simply think before we rush out to the store to buy the latest gadget.
“Your face is always glued to that screen!”
I’ve shrugged off my mom’s complaint because I thought it was just a silly expression. But now I wonder- is that silly expression turning out to be a startling prediction?
