Google Glass

"tell us what you would do if you had Glass" - uh oh, this is exactly how Google Wave started. They are asking because it is a cool tool and they don't know how people will get real value yet.

I agree with you completely.

I go as far as putting technologies like social media, smartphones, and immersive never-ending game worlds into the same category as recreational drugs. These things make it far easier to artificially trigger our reward circuits, than to create valuable interactions in the real world.

It is terrifying in the long term as well, because I think if we keep on this road, we will lose all interest in external reality. (there is a great article making the argument that this explains the Fermi paradox, but can't find the link)

Still, part of me wants Glass, because I have terrible memory and forget life events. :-/

I don't think artursapek is arguing that these technologies are bad. There's certainly a time and place for them all, but they shouldn't be a substitute for a social situation. If I invited my friends out to a dinner and everyone brought a book with them and just read the entire time, I'd be just as pissed as if they were on their phone the entire time.

There's' also certainly something fundamentally different about browsing Facebook and Twitter over reading a book. Books are intentional - you've committed to a topic, and there's a finite amount of information to digest. When you're checking social media, you don't know what you're going to get, but it'll probably keep you occupied. You're just consuming mostly trivial information, hoping something interesting happens on your screen. It's like flipping through TV channels to pass the evening. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's probably something best kept in moderation. artursapek's post is about his observations on how people are increasingly consuming this information fast food in excess.

Kindles are simply super-books. I own a Kindle, I love my Kindle. There's nothing wrong with Kindles or newspapers. There's also nothing wrong with reading a newspaper or playing with your phone when you're on a subway surrounded by strangers. I do that, everyone has always done that and always will.

There's a huge difference anyway between iPhones and books/newspapers. It's not a good comparison. The only similarity is the posture one holds when consuming them, which is why your photos sort of work for your argument. Reading a book or newspaper takes effort and concentration, whereas flicking through whatever stream on your iPhone takes little to no thought at all. It's active consumption vs. passive consumption.

I believe that to live a healthy life you do need a good balance of production and consumption.

Several of you responding to my post seem to think that I miss a time when everyone used to talk to everyone and people were all "engaged with each other" and that I think socializing is dead. That's not it. I'm simply worried about how ubiquitous and in-front-of-our-faces these devices are becoming, and how addictive they are.

If it clarifies anything, I also don't use Facebook and I didn't grow up on television, so maybe I'm just an outcast in that regard. However, I enjoy reading and going to the cinema and I'm focusing all my energy on starting a software company. So I'm also not Amish. Call me disgruntled, maybe I am. I think I have a reason to be.

Try to convince me that most of the time you spend on your phone is time well spent. It's probably not. Well, not too long from now that shit is going right in front of your eye, wrapped around your cranium.

#ifihadglass, standing on the shoulders of Prof Mann and MIT Media Labs I would reach into the future.