'Glassholes'

Wearing Google Glass made users feel like they didn’t have to connect with the actual humans around them. “I’m elsewhere — even though I appear to be staring right at you.” Frankly the people who wore Google Glass were afraid of the people around them. And Glass gave them a strange transparent hiding place. A self-centered context for suffering through normal moments of uncomfortable close proximity. Does it matter that everyone around you is more uncomfortable for it?

At least with a hand-held phone there was no charade. The very presence of the device in hand, head down, was a clear flag alerting bystanders to the momentary disconnect. “At the moment, I’m not paying attention to you.”

snip...

Suddenly we all realized what poor multi-taskers these people really were. Any wearer who actually wanted to interact with the real world quickly found they had to keep taking off their Google Glasses and stowing them, or else everyone got mad.

It was simply deemed unacceptable to wear them persistently. And in fact users reported to having been socially pressured to use them quite a lot as they had previously used their phones. Pulling them out as needed. Which utterly defeated the purpose. On some level – that’s what broke Google Glass. It wasn’t what it was supposed to be. It wasn’t persistent. It was more cumbersome and socially uncomfortable than the previous paradigm.

People who left them on in social situations were openly called “glassholes”.

http://theinteractivist.com/messages-from-the-future-the-fate-of-google-glass

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6 replies	Author	Time	Post
'Glassholes' (Original post)	onehandle	Feb 2013	OP
Weird. Kind of like a high tech ostrich head in the ground approach. n/t	Cleita	Feb 2013	#1
wonder how much Apple paid him to write this?	CBGLuthier	Feb 2013	#2
Why would they? Google Glasshole Glasses are compatible with iPhones.	onehandle	Feb 2013	#3
We'll all have a good laugh when Apple comes out with some i-glasses	FSogol	Feb 2013	#4
Since the author has put up his bio,	Cleita	Feb 2013	#5
Shades of	nykym	Feb 2013	#6