Pacing the future

Pranav Mistry - The thrilling potential of sixth sense technology

Please watch this video before reading the rest of this piece

As I watched the video, I felt a sense of confusion, anxiety and thrill all try to run through me at the same time. Mistry speaks of integration of the digital and physical world with unparalleled enthusiasm. He goes on about bringing the digital world out into the physical world and vice versa. All exciting stuff for sure, but also, slightly scary in my view. The limitless potential this technology has is definitely mind boggling but not necessarily completely positive. I mean, as is the case with all new technology, the potential for misuse is usually just as exhaustive. But the thing is, I'm actually worried by something else. What twists my mind is this: do we really possess a latent need to integrate the digital world with the physical world? Is there really a need for more efficiency, predictability, calculability and control? I borrow from Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis here where I voice my concern regarding its horrors. This constant need for better, cheaper and now is usually fulfilled at some moral/ethical expense. But even if we set that aside for a minute, its astounding to see how we've all actually become Elizabeth Schor's 'Time squeezed consumers'. Time is money they say, they really mean that time is a commodity, invented for purchase and sale.

What happened to spending Sunday afternoon doing nothing? What happened to walking on the beach without your iPod? What happened to having a conversation with your best friend while cloud-watching and leaving that coffee shop behind?

Do we really need our commodities everywhere we go? Do we really need to have a web cam around our necks and be able to make hand gestures to take a picture like Mistry does? Why can't we just take a mental picture and cherish it as it takes on sepia tones in our mind?

PS: I am aware of and deeply appreciate the counter argument to my view but I felt like this was one of those days where I just had to say what I just said. I welcome all comments :)