Is Google Glass Dangerous?
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By DANIEL J. SIMONS and CHRISTOPHER F. CHABRIS Published: May 24, 2013 112 Comments
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NEWS about Google Glass is everywhere these days, and so are its critics.
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Some charge it only with fashion crimes. Others worry about invasion of privacy: when out on a date with a Glass wearer, you won’t know if they are recording you — or Googling “seduction tips,” for that matter.
Nonetheless, most agree that a smartphone-linked display and camera placed in the corner of your vision is intriguing and potentially revolutionary — and like us, they want to try it. But Glass may inadvertently disrupt a crucial cognitive capacity, with potentially dangerous consequences.
In an impromptu TED talk and interview in March, Sergey Brin, one of Google’s founders, described a motivation for the new product. “We questioned whether you should be walking around looking down” at a smartphone, he said. Instead, the company’s designers asked, “Can we make something that frees your hands” and “frees your eyes”?
Google isn’t the only company selling a technology that makes it easier to use your phone while you do other things. Last month Chevrolet released a commercial touting “eyes-free and hands-free integration” with the iPhone’s Siri interface, showing a woman checking her text messages using voice commands while she drives in circles.
To their credit, Google’s designers have recognized the distraction caused by grabbing someone’s attention with a sudden visual change. Mr. Brin explained that Glass doesn’t flash an alert in its users’ visual field when a new text message arrives. Instead, it plays a sound and requires them to look up to activate the display.
The “eyes-free” goal addresses an obvious limitation of the human brain: we can’t look away from where we’re heading for more than a few seconds without losing our bearings. And time spent looking at a cellphone is time spent oblivious to the world, as shown in the viral videos of distracted phone users who stumble into shopping-mall fountains.
Most people intuitively grasp the “two-second rule.” When driving, for example, we glance only briefly at the radio or speedometer. But some distractions overwhelm this intuition.
Researchers at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute outfitted cars and trucks with cameras and sensors to monitor real-world driving behavior. When drivers were communicating, they tended to look away for as much as 4.6 seconds during a 6-second period. In effect, people lose track of time when texting, leading them to look at their phones far longer than they know they should. Two-way communication is especially engaging, and time flies when we are reading and typing.
Heads-up displays like Google Glass, and voice interfaces like Siri, seem like ideal solutions, letting you simultaneously interact with your smartphone while staying alert to your surroundings. If your gaze remains directed at the world, then presumably if something important happens in your field of vision, it will capture your attention and take over your consciousness, letting you respond to it quickly.
The problem is that looking is not the same as seeing, and people make wrong assumptions about what will grab their attention.
ACCORDING to the results of two representative national surveys we conducted, about 70 percent of Americans believe that “people will notice when something unexpected enters their field of view, even when they’re paying attention to something else.”
Yet experiments that we and others have conducted showed that people often fail to notice something as obvious as a person in a gorilla suit in situations where they are devoting attention to something else. Researchers using eye-tracking devices found that people can miss the gorilla even when they look right at it. This phenomenon of “inattentional blindness” shows that what we see depends not just on where we look but also on how we focus our attention.
If you think the situation would improve if the computer display appeared superimposed on the world itself, think again. Perception requires both your eyes and your mind, and if your mind is engaged, you can fail to see something that would otherwise be utterly obvious.
Research with commercial airline pilots suggests that displaying instrument readings directly on the windshield can make pilots less aware of their surroundings, even leading to crashes in simulated landings.
Google Glass may allow users to do amazing things, but it does not abolish the limits on the human ability to pay attention. Intuitions about attention lead to wrong assumptions about what we’re likely to see; we are especially unaware of how completely our attention can be absorbed by the continual availability of compelling and useful information. Only by understanding the science of attention and the limits of the human mind and brain can we design new interfaces that are both revolutionary and safe.
Daniel J. Simons is a professor of psychology and advertising at the University of Illinois. Christopher F. Chabris is a professor of psychology at Union College. They are the authors of “The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us.”
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on May 26, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Is Google Glass Dangerous?.
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- arydberg
- Charlestown, RI
Your approach, That there is a difference between a stimulus like seeing a vehicle and the thought process of responding to that stimulus Is noteworthy. As a motorcycle driver one of the most hazzardious situations we face is the experience of seeing a driver stop while we prepare to pass in front of him, Look straight at us and, not seeing the expected car, will pull out right in front of us. I cannot help but wonder if this behavior is caused by the artificial sweeteners and other brain altering chemicals we indulge in.
- May 26, 2013 at 4:02 p.m.
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- Bob In CT
- Connecticut
I designed this over 15 years ago, called it the Midas Eye, it was for pit traders. Since then I have designed similar devices for the Military and others.
Reading all the literature and press accounts on this, I am amazed the eye/brain issues have not been raised. You just need to ask any Apache gunner about how the eye (mono display) and the brain interact.
The brain evolved to process stereo images, or a single mono image, never till now has the brain had to process two different images. For a while the brain can process different images, but after a while, it gets tired and it starts flipping between images uncontrollably. Appache gunners handle this by cranking the brightness up in the display eye, such that the other eye's iris shrinks. They track each other.
Stereo displays are a lot more difficult to design, alignment is critical and alignment is difficult to achieve with lightweight head supported devices, especially glasses.
And given this is a see through display it has to compete with the great light source in the solar system, namely the sun. There is a balance between reflectivity of the combiner and the see through transmission ratio. Too dark? Great display brightness but bad see though and you have trouble see whats in front of you.
Many tradeoffs. I refuse to make a prediction on google glasses, if any 30+ years in tech have taught me not to judge or predict.- May 26, 2013 at 3:57 p.m.
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- Thomas Hawk
- Oakland, CA
The solution to any distraction while driving is simple. Just use them with your Google self driving car. ;)
- May 26, 2013 at 3:20 p.m.
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- NB Bob
- Massachusetts
One can't help but agree that Google Glass holds the potential for added risk when engaged in another activity like driving. However, I suggest the following list of broadly accepted activities are likely equally attention averting: discussing a work-related problem while commuting with a colleague, arguing with a spouse, "looking" for the right tune on the car radio, driving with an infant and two other children, eating a cheeseburger and drinking a soda . . . and, singing with a song playing in your car while showing the world that your are, indeed, a "guitar hero".
- Matt Ng
- New York, NY
We're probably days or weeks away from the first car accident or pedestrian death caused by someone distracted by wearing and using Google Glass.
- May 26, 2013 at 2:50 p.m.
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- benmlee
- CA
Is all a matter of habit. All the scientific studies are useless without the why.
We being the first generation to have cell phone gets to drive and call for the first time in history. Up to this time in our life, we are expected to giving full attention to the other person on the phone.
Therefore, we give the other person full attention on the phone while driving. This is all subconscious. Over time, we slowly realize we can't do that. Remember back in year 2000, a guy slowly ran a red light and drove around on coming cars. Drivers have improved dramatically since then.
Driver's talk while driving performance is pretty good now especially with people who do it frequently. The same will be working on a computer while walking or driving. You learn to do it.
Not saying you should, but the scientific studies are flawed in that the results are transient. Is a moving target. Do the same study 5 years latter, and people's performance will improve. Do the same on the next generation, and it will be even better. -
- Smarten Up, People
- US
Other research has shown that we cannot multi-task, we are fooling ourselves.
What we do is task-switching:
now I am driving,
now talking,
now driving,
talking,
drive,
talk...
etc.
Do that fast enough and you have the illusion you really are doing two things at once, just like 24 still photographs seen quickly enough give you the illusion you are watching a "motion picture.”
An illusion.- May 26, 2013 at 2:50 p.m.
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- Casual Observer
- Los Angeles
NYT Pick
These devices are cool but using them as one goes about the normal activities of one's life, and especially while driving vehicles, operating machinery, and even riding bicycles the likelihood of being dangerously distracted and causing harm is going to cause a lot of problems. But it's already a big problem with those who are plugged into music or conversing on phones who drive, ride bikes, walk or even try to order a fast food meal with little awareness of their surroundings and with tunnel vision.
You don't know all the mind is doing when you are awake and dong things. It involves not just your senses but the activities related to perception which involves your memory and evaluation of things and what you should do about them or not. When your mind is focused elsewhere, many of these processes are preoccupied, which will affect how quickly you may react to circumstances as well as how appropriately.- May 26, 2013 at 2:50 p.m.
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- QTCatch
- NY
I bet most of you know about the famous gorilla experiment, where you watch a video of kids throwing balls around and you're told to concentrate on specific balls, and the vast majority of people are so focused on the balls that they don't notice a guy in a gorilla costume slowly walk across the screen, waving his arms and being a huge spectacle. We are incredibly unaware of how our own powers of awareness really work!
- May 26, 2013 at 2:50 p.m.
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- Thinker
- Northern California
"I'll reserve judgement until the technology is widely used...."
I predict you'll be reserving judgment for a long, long time. Google Glass will be tossed into the dustbin of history within a year after it hits the market. Three years later, most articles will be entitled "What ever happened to Google Glass?"- May 26, 2013 at 2:49 p.m.
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- Neo Pacific
- San Diego
Cell Phones and Google Glass should simply be encoded to prevent drivers from texting or reading while driving.
- May 26, 2013 at 2:49 p.m.
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- Casual Observer
- Los Angeles
We are used to seeing ourselves and other living things acting and reacting to things in fractions of a second, all the time. We don't appreciate all the sights, sounds, feelings, smells, memories, evaluations and decisions even a bird or a cat make with their relatively less complicated brains in split seconds. Imagine how much more our brains must do in split seconds as we deal with other people as well as with our environments.
We don't multitask as well as many think. Try measuring how long it takes to do things well under various challenges. You will find that impediments to normal functioning like drugs or alcohol in the body or lack of sleep are clear. Try measuring reactions when one's mind is focused upon anything other than one is doing, and the effects are clear. People talk about multitasking and think that are like a super computer with many separate little processors working independently with reserved memory for each, kind of like bunch of clones, but it does not work that way. We have one mind that works most efficiently doing one thing at a time. The more things we try to do, the less we can give to any one of them.- May 26, 2013 at 2:49 p.m.
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- phil
- canada
My concern about google glasses rests in my concern about google in general. Google markets us to its advertisers. It treats us like a product and with increasingly sophisticated algorithms sends advertisers to our screens based on our searches and net activity. In addition it is playing the supremely ironic function of diminishing knowledge. The shear size of search findings is conditioning us to look more and more superficially for the information we seek. Most people will settle for whatever is on the first search page and look no further. The result is an addiction to easy answers and an aversion to the type of complex information seeking that built our civilization.
Now take these two results of google use and put the service in our field of vision all day long. Far from enriching us and our environment the barrage of information and data will continue to simplify and commodity us. I find this much more disturbing than the possibly of being distracted enough to trip into a mall fountain.- May 26, 2013 at 2:49 p.m.
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- Bob Johnson
- USA
NYT Pick
These same arguments were posed against smartphones, laptops, computers, etc.
Did they turn out to be "dangerous"? Yes, I'm sure many a car accident were caused by texting or what have you. But in essence, the real problem is the user,not the device.
While this technology may or may not catch on, inevitably more and more similar distractions will come out in the coming years.
Countering the technology itself is a losing battle. If impoliteness and distractions are negative, tackle these issues directly -- Google Glass is only a sideshow, it's the culture, attitudes, and behaviors that should be the true focus. -
- angel98
- New York
NYT Pick
“Can we make something that frees your hands” and “frees your eyes”?
How about making something that frees the brain so people can actually think instead of being tempted further into a black-hole of voyeurism and solitary-communication.
Curiosity would have me try it out - but think I would get bored quickly as I like solitary or social (as in the old fashioned definition of being physically present with other human beings) - not this oxymoron state of being that has become to define "social" these days. 
- Occupy Government
- Oakland
I ride a bus across the San Francisco Bay twice a day, where I can see into the cars of other commuters. Lots of drivers are texting or dialing; some are putting on makeup; some searching the glove compartment for lost gold; some playing the guitar and singing in a band. My advice to all is, get on the bus and save a life.
- May 26, 2013 at 2:48 p.m.
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- David
- California
Unfortunately there are lots of other gadgets that are dangerous. Goggle glass will probably be more dangerous than most because people will think that because they can use the glasses hands free that they are safe.
I think the google glasses represent the next generation of futuristic devices. It will take time to know what are the dangers besides the obvious ones of being distracted.
www.feelgoodtracker.com-
- angel98
- New York
EVERY MILLISECOND COUNTS WHEN DRIVING - a car is a powerful, heavy, fast, machine, people seem to have forgotten that with the advent of the automatic car /mini-home/mini-office - even a tiny child can drive an automatic. Maybe we should bring back the stick shift to remind people that they are operating a powerful piece of machinery, not sitting on a sofa in their home.
- May 26, 2013 at 2:40 p.m.
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- McKenzie
- Bay Area, CA
I live in the Bay Area where so many of these new "innovations" originate. The tech culture here is one of little boys trying to replicate in real life, the things and ideas they thought were "cool" when they were growing up. But these little boys who work in their ping-pong tabled, nerd-is-cool, places of self-worship have never really had the opportunity to grow up. And now surrounded by copies of themselves they talk each other in to believing that their ideas are producing life changing wonders. I mean, if we couldn't broadcast our bland, meaningless thoughts or our terrible, terrible photographs constantly, what's the point in existing, right? Google Glass is a product of these minds that is searching for a purpose. I am absolutely confident there are times and places where this technology will be extremely useful, but for the general public it is just another piece of "shiny and new". Google even admitted as much when launching the product by asking people for ideas about what could be done with them. Because apparently they themselves don't have a clue, but hey......it's new.....it's cool......y'know.......like the movies.
- May 26, 2013 at 2:40 p.m.
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- steve hunter
- seattle
Ford thought the Edsel was a revolutionary idea once upon a time.
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- MsCleo
- Atlanta, GA
Consider that Google Glass will not only be used while driving, thus the blanket statement of Google Glass is dangerous really not appropriate.
People already use cell phones while driving even though it's illegal. And some will do the same will Google Glass. Then why not just write an article about how cell phones are dangerous? Because Google Glass is a hot topic and everyone likes to jump on the bandwagon to criticize it.
In the end, Google Glass is simply enabling, just like most technologies. People being irresponsible is what make technology dangerous.
And I think the media needs to lay off criticizing it so much. It's getting old. Technology like this moves us forward.- May 26, 2013 at 2:39 p.m.
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- Daninja129
- Davenport
I think you had the best commit out the the 50 that I've already read
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- angel98
- New York
I love technology, it is intriguing, a wonderland and toys like this can be fun. But increasingly they seem more the adult version of a child's security blanket with all that is inherent in that - and it worries, yet also intrigues me as to where we are headed. We seem to have technology down - but what about us human beings?
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
...
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal
Neither plentitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
...
DISTRACTED FROM DISTRACTION BY DISTRACTION
Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude
World not world, but that which is not world
Internal darkness, deprivation
T.S.Elliot- May 26, 2013 at 2:38 p.m.
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- Malcolm
- NYC
Hey, Google Glass is a shiny new toy we can play with. Do we really need to know anything more than that?
- May 25, 2013 at 5:47 p.m.
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- Trudy
- Pasadena, CA
I remember when the Segway was touted as revolutionary. What happened to that?
- May 25, 2013 at 5:47 p.m.
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- Casual Observer
- Los Angeles
It's a very expensive device which limits the customer base. It's difficult to ride and to control which have led to a lot of accidents.
- May 26, 2013 at 2:49 p.m.
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- MHR
- South Korea
A novel, but foolish device. Computer chips in the brain, computers in front of our eyes: ideal means for mass distraction and pacification. Do you feel disconnected and alien? Are you depressed? You must need medication and a new computer you can wear on your face. As the phone call is going kaput and true letter writing is in the ground, we're ever more "connected," and we're all "friends," and we "like" everything. Meanwhile the liberal arts are becoming a sideshow.
Luckily, our society is getting sick of this nonsense. See the flannel everywhere? Did you hear someone in a restaurant in Manhattan ask if the onions were local? Authenticity of life and stuff cannot be forgotten. The hipsters are half-there but they need to ditch the irony.
At heart, we want a world we can remember. We remember by touching, smelling, tasting, seeing and hearing. Oh yeah, by talking too.- May 25, 2013 at 5:47 p.m.
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