51–60 of 89 posts
We haven't seen nothing yet. Smartphone addiction is a thing, but at least you can put your phone in your pocket on silent and go on with your day. But AR lenses are coming and will be the next big thing in my opinion. Imagine being immersed in this semi-virtual world all day long. Imagine being a child and grow up in a world where these things are ubiquitous. Imagine what this will do to their attention.
We haven't seen nothing yet. Smartphone addiction is a thing, but at least you can put your phone in your pocket on silent and go on with your day. But AR lenses are coming and will be the next big thing in my opinion. Imagine being immersed in this semi-virtual world all day long. Imagine being a child and grow up in a world where these things are ubiquitous. Imagine what this will do to their attention.
Think about nothing being sold with a color or pattern anymore, because you can just customize it to whatever you want in your AR view. Think about products not having any sort of printed imagery, because it's pointless when animated digital overlay overrides it anyway.
Think about being one of those outsiders who sees an entire world where everything you interact with is black and white and you can't hold but the lowest job, because you are literally blind to 99.9% of "reality". Think about not being able to live a middle class life without augmenting your vision.
Strikes me that the ability to focus and direct ones own attention will (or already has) become a new form of class divide; those who can concentrate and those who can't. And it will likely have much different boundaries than earlier class divisions like wealth - in fact the wealthy are more likely to struggle given greater access to a wide range of digital products.
Oh dear HackerNews, how dearly I love thou, but how many hours of me life has ye taken already? I’d rather not know
If HN was a subscription-only service, I'd subscribe in a heartbeat. (It would have a number of downsides, of course.)
We haven't seen nothing yet. Smartphone addiction is a thing, but at least you can put your phone in your pocket on silent and go on with your day. But AR lenses are coming and will be the next big thing in my opinion. Imagine being immersed in this semi-virtual world all day long. Imagine being a child and grow up in a world where these things are ubiquitous. Imagine what this will do to their attention.
Oh dear HackerNews, how dearly I love thou, but how many hours of me life has ye taken already? I’d rather not know
It even sometimes prevents wasted time. I'll look at the comments first, and quickly figure out that the article is a waste of time. I find that out faster from the comments than I would from the article. Net result - time saved (or at least time more efficiently wasted...)
We haven't seen nothing yet. Smartphone addiction is a thing, but at least you can put your phone in your pocket on silent and go on with your day. But AR lenses are coming and will be the next big thing in my opinion. Imagine being immersed in this semi-virtual world all day long. Imagine being a child and grow up in a world where these things are ubiquitous. Imagine what this will do to their attention.
Imagine the world a hundred years from now, where almost everything is presented as augmented reality, and where someone who doesn't have permanently augmented vision is seen as an outsider, much like the Amish today. Think about nothing being sold with a color or pattern anymore, because you can just customize it to whatever you want in your AR view. Think about products not having any sort of printed imagery, becau…
But using that assumption and for the sake of discussion, I'll point out that your dystopian vision could be applied to most technologies. Imagine a time when anyone can get a hold of you. They no longer need to write a letter or go to a telegraph office, your voice is there, whenever they want it. They are able to invade your home with this attention seeking technology by installing a little bell. You are more and more marginalized in the workplace if you are not permanently wired to this network of contacts.
Of course, this process escalates as technology escalates, but it's not the first time that someone has looked at the future and said "think about this world that is so alien". I just wonder where we cross the line to dystopia
Oh dear HackerNews, how dearly I love thou, but how many hours of me life has ye taken already? I’d rather not know
Time spent on HN was very rarely wasted, and more than once led me to things that directly improved what I do for money. If HN was a subscription-only service, I'd subscribe in a heartbeat. (It would have a number of downsides, of course.)
Strikes me that the ability to focus and direct ones own attention will (or already has) become a new form of class divide; those who can concentrate and those who can't. And it will likely have much different boundaries than earlier class divisions like wealth - in fact the wealthy are more likely to struggle given greater access to a wide range of digital products.
A counterpoint is Warren Buffett. His office doesn't have a phone or computer or anything that might interrupt him. He tells his secretary to hold everything while he goes inside, kicks back, and reads volume after volume of market data. To me, focus is more accessible to the wealthy. If I could afford it, I'd pay someone to handle Slack/phone/email for me so I could do what I most enjoy, which is get into a flow wit…
Focus is a choice.