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I work with teenagers and there is a distinct lack of social stigma around having a conversation while wearing (at least) one earbud. Older folks immediately fi

I work with teenagers and there is a distinct lack of social stigma around having a conversation while wearing (at least) one earbud. Older folks immediately find this rude as it implies the listener is only paying half attention, or can’t be bothered to turn off their music. Young people simply don’t care as much - while will be important if AR is ever going to take off as we will need to bridge our social acceptance beyond the ‘glasshole’ phase.

scarface74 7y ago
To add on, - there was a famous scene in “Clueless” (1995) where the “rich” girls were walking down the hall in school with cell phones and they were seen to be out of touch. Now, that’s perfectly normal. - only “nerds” walked around with their calculator and video game watches and now millions of people have “wrist computers”. - When I was in school, if you had a pager, everyone assumed you were a drug dealer.
partyboat1586 7y ago
The attention drain will expand from smartphones to augmented reality, visual and auditory. Teenagers already engaging in a mild, early form of audio AR without stigma predicts this will happen. I do not look forward to this future and the inevitable struggles we will go through in finding a way to use AR responsibily without impacting mental health and social cohesiveness. I'm sure AR will be important to our future and will be a great enabler but it is not without its risks, the main one being stolen attention.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
  Unfortunately, designing products with social/mental/moral welfare tends to push them into a higher price point vs mass market. Caring about “mental health and social cohesiveness” will not win out against feeding users’ vanity, individualism and pleasure drive. It’s a task to think about though. How much veiling and social intermediation will people accept (or socially require) before the deep alienation sets in?

scarface74 7y ago

To add on, - there was a famous scene in “Clueless” (1995) where the “rich” girls were walking down the hall in school with cell phones and they were seen to be out of touch. Now, that’s perfectly normal. - only “nerds” walked around with their calculator and video game watches and now millions of people have “wrist computers”. - When I was in school, if you had a pager, everyone assumed you were a drug dealer.

partyboat1586 7y ago

The attention drain will expand from smartphones to augmented reality, visual and auditory. Teenagers already engaging in a mild, early form of audio AR without stigma predicts this will happen. I do not look forward to this future and the inevitable struggles we will go through in finding a way to use AR responsibily without impacting mental health and social cohesiveness. I'm sure AR will be important to our future and will be a great enabler but it is not without its risks, the main one being stolen attention.

germinalphrase 7y ago
Unfortunately, designing products with social/mental/moral welfare tends to push them into a higher price point vs mass market. Caring about “mental health and social cohesiveness” will not win out against feeding users’ vanity, individualism and pleasure drive. It’s a task to think about though. How much veiling and social intermediation will people accept (or socially require) before the deep alienation sets in?