OK Glass = OK End of Communicating to Negotiate Shared Reality?
I have a number of friends who are very excited about the launch of Google's "The Future is Now" Glass. The quote-encased description is mine--not theirs--at least not to my knowledge). I must admit, while it seems much of the technology of past movies is finally willing its way into existence, I would be more excited about the realization of Marty McFly's flying car than this newest device, but I looked into the Glass to see what the fuss was about.
According to their website, Google's Glass is a device that sits like glasses on your face and can be directed by saying "OK Glass" to take a picture, display directions or other information, or record video of what the wearer is seeing. I imagine it can do many other things and people are invited to submit applications to be among the 8,000 who will be honored with the opportunity to spend $1500 to be an early adopter of this technology. Rest assured, I will not be applying. Not only do I have problems remembering where my contacts are on my iPhone two days in a row, I wonder how this latest version of "the future of technology" will affect how we communicate with one another.
I am no technology forecaster--hearing an NPR piece on the new media Twitter several years ago I could not fathom how or why the world would want to communicate in 140 characters on a regular basis. I did, however, guess that legions of people would use texting to break up with their significant others rather than do the courageous and right thing and see that person face-to-face or at least voice-to-voice. And now, I suspect wide-scale adoption of Google's Glass would significantly alter the way in which we communicatively negotiate our shared realities. As our communicative world stands today, we spend a great amount of time talking, emailing, signing, texting, etc. all for the purpose of helping others to understanding how we are experiencing the world. If we are paying attention, these acts also allow us to understand the evolution of our own experiences. The act of negotiating a shared reality is often time-consuming, but may well be the epitome of the idea that something's worth is directly linked to what we are willing to pay--and the price for this act is time.
I foresee a time in which all those with the Glass record nearly everything they set eyes on. (I also foresee data storage as a growth industry). While this may give others the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the wearer, the perspective offered will be merely physical and not experiential. I wonder if conflict will be "solved" through playbacks of footage of the wearer's perspective on the event and offered as irrefutable proof of Truth with a capital T. Will we sell our ability to attempt to describe our own perspective for $1500 and just hand out a link to our personal database and say "here's what I saw...watch it and you'll know who is right?"
Through our current use of social media, our culture is becoming one that is always linked and yet often lonely. Would wide-scale adoption of the Glass and its inevitable competitors allow us to record everything and understand even less about our fellow humans than we do now? As always, technology advances help us the most when we are cognizant of how we change with the technology and make conscious decisions about what we do and do not want to give up while using those advances. I can only hope that we will decide that the communicative negotiation of our shared reality is worth the price of time to do things the old-fashioned way and priortize understanding someone's experiential perspective over a playback of wherever he or she aimed this newest piece of technology.
Rebecca S. Imes, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Communication
According to their website, Google's Glass is a device that sits like glasses on your face and can be directed by saying "OK Glass" to take a picture, display directions or other information, or record video of what the wearer is seeing. I imagine it can do many other things and people are invited to submit applications to be among the 8,000 who will be honored with the opportunity to spend $1500 to be an early adopter of this technology. Rest assured, I will not be applying. Not only do I have problems remembering where my contacts are on my iPhone two days in a row, I wonder how this latest version of "the future of technology" will affect how we communicate with one another.
I am no technology forecaster--hearing an NPR piece on the new media Twitter several years ago I could not fathom how or why the world would want to communicate in 140 characters on a regular basis. I did, however, guess that legions of people would use texting to break up with their significant others rather than do the courageous and right thing and see that person face-to-face or at least voice-to-voice. And now, I suspect wide-scale adoption of Google's Glass would significantly alter the way in which we communicatively negotiate our shared realities. As our communicative world stands today, we spend a great amount of time talking, emailing, signing, texting, etc. all for the purpose of helping others to understanding how we are experiencing the world. If we are paying attention, these acts also allow us to understand the evolution of our own experiences. The act of negotiating a shared reality is often time-consuming, but may well be the epitome of the idea that something's worth is directly linked to what we are willing to pay--and the price for this act is time.
I foresee a time in which all those with the Glass record nearly everything they set eyes on. (I also foresee data storage as a growth industry). While this may give others the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the wearer, the perspective offered will be merely physical and not experiential. I wonder if conflict will be "solved" through playbacks of footage of the wearer's perspective on the event and offered as irrefutable proof of Truth with a capital T. Will we sell our ability to attempt to describe our own perspective for $1500 and just hand out a link to our personal database and say "here's what I saw...watch it and you'll know who is right?"
Through our current use of social media, our culture is becoming one that is always linked and yet often lonely. Would wide-scale adoption of the Glass and its inevitable competitors allow us to record everything and understand even less about our fellow humans than we do now? As always, technology advances help us the most when we are cognizant of how we change with the technology and make conscious decisions about what we do and do not want to give up while using those advances. I can only hope that we will decide that the communicative negotiation of our shared reality is worth the price of time to do things the old-fashioned way and priortize understanding someone's experiential perspective over a playback of wherever he or she aimed this newest piece of technology.
Rebecca S. Imes, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Communication