Eyes Everywhere

The Unsettling Reality About Wearable Tech

You. Out and about. Walking to work, maybe running to catch a train, or grab a coffee with a mate.

Pretty ordinary activities, with little consequence.

But would you do these things differently if you knew you were being watched?

Enter the realm of ‘wearable’ glasses. Take Meta’s Ray Bans.

Anyone can wear glasses.

What about everyone, everywhere? All at once.

Sunglasses on a bright winter's day, or a hot summer's one. Something we already have, are already using.

They just blend in.

A boomer holding up a tablet to take a pic, is something to giggle at. It looks out of place, bulky and large. A phone, well, we mostly see this as an extension - something that sits outside of your body, separate - not worn. We have learned to be wary, or even just conscious, of a phone held up high. Extended. Positioned.

So, how will we react to something that's already there? Already attached to our bodies? Familiar. Comfortable.

Will we react? Should we even care?

I guess what triggered this thought was the use of the words 'livestream' in the product description of Meta’s Ray Bans. 

While you could argue an image can be checked, selected, before consciously, decisively, uploaded. A live stream is just that. Live.

We increasingly lean more and more into the digital realm capturing, sharing, liking, commenting. Using short-form, long-form media, static imagery to absorb and endlessly scroll. Our place of entertainment, of rest, of connection, of inspiration. 

Really, this is nothing new.

We already share so much of our lives online.

But there is a difference I would like to note.

Taking an object that has already been integrated in our lives, and giving it a new purpose, additional features if you will, allows it to exist without anyone noticing. 

And function.

Unnoticed.

The Push - Fully online.

Let's face it, most of us live quite ordinary lives, myself included. I cherish my life, despite its daily monotony. Now, imagine the mundane aspects of your life increasingly visible online—moments in a café, overheard conversations on the street, your walk home.

Though not the main attraction, your unfiltered presence is captured.

Will our behaviour change? To cater to being on show at any moment.

Enter, Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and George Orwell’s ‘1984’ Big Brother effect. Different mechanics for creating a space where you feel like you are always being watched.

The Panopticon 

A design from the late 1800s for buildings that allows one person to watch everyone inside without them knowing. It has a central observation spot and cells around it with windows for constant viewing.

The primary idea behind the Panopticon is to create a sense of permanent visibility. Since the inmates cannot know when they are being watched, they must act as though they are being watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour.

The Big Brother Effect

Similarly, the Big Brother Effect comes from George Orwell's book, describing how people feel and act when they know a powerful authority is always watching them. It shows how constant watching can make people act the same way, have less privacy, and be afraid to disagree.

Both ideas play with the power gained. Or lack of it, when eyes follow your every move. While the ethics around both of these concepts are sketchy at best, they pose an interesting question.

How would you behave if you were not sure if you were being watched or not? Or in today’s world, 

How would you behave if there was always the possibility of being recorded? 

This does assume, of course, that you would actually mind, some people might not 🤷‍♀️

Nosedive

Take Nosedive, a Black Mirror episode where society is obsessed with social ratings. People rate every interaction, affecting social status and access to services. 

Now if you haven’t watched this, I won’t give away any spoilers. But it is a scarily familiar example of how the world could function, if every interaction is recorded, shared, quantified and exchanged for goods & services. 

I.e. your behaviour and popularity determines where you live and work. 

Freaky.

Eyes Everywhere by Ananya (Instagram)

The Pull - Let’s take it back.

My immediate thoughts turned to pulling away from society completely. Become a hermit. In the forest. Even better. Become the forest.

Now realistically, this isn't going to work. Funny that. If everyone wants to do this. We’ll run out of isolated spaces pretty dang quick. And I actually like hanging out with people, I like spending time in towns, cities. Hell, I even enjoy going to the occasional movie at the theatre. Crazy, I know.

What about minutiae? an app dedicated to the mundane. If you are going to engage in some way, why not do so with no context at all.

No profiles

No likes

No comments

It's bizarre really. A unique idea dreamed up by  the artists, Martin Adolfsson, and Daniel J. Wilson.

They sum it up quite nicely,

"Social media was supposed to keep us in touch with our friends but has instead turned us all into unwitting monkeys filling out the world’s longest consumer survey."

Now they are not alone in the idea that social media isn't exactly everyone's friend, anxiety and mental health is on the rise, we are creating a lonely generation.

So, they took the concept - posting about your life - and twisted it. They celebrate the ordinary by not encouraging anything at all. Expect anonymity and zero instant gratification. The 'anti-social media app' as they call it.

So you could go down this road, take back some semblance of control over what is posted online, by providing your most boring, mundane moments on an app which let's you do so for quite literally, no reason at all. Your Aunt won't tell you how wonderful your lunch looks. You'll need to post elsewhere for that.

Or you could try what Barbra Streisand did, and spend copious amounts of money trying to remove information off the web. Not only did this backfire, but she also ended up creating a new phenomenon, coined in her name the ‘Streisand effect’. Attempting to hide, remove, or censor information actually leads to its wider spread.

Ok so scratch that.

Hiding in the bush. Fun for a weekend, maybe a week at most. Use anti-social media. Just why? Sounds like admin to me. Remove recordings. Expensive and likely to make you more famous (or infamous…).

Back to the drawing board I guess.

Anyone have any other ideas? I’m all ears.

Until next time,

nevo

Our world constantly lives in a state of balance.

Too much of one thing and the balance tips. Will it be good or bad? Or maybe something in between?

Join me on a journey exploring the push and the pull, uncovering what happens when we lean too far one way and what it takes to restore a degree of harmony.