“Three….
Two…. One… Okay! Open your eyes!” Sarah slowly opened her eyes, looking through
the lenses of her new Google glasses for the first time. The store didn’t look
much different through the virtual lenses than through her own naked eyes, and
she felt a slight whisper of disappointment.
“So there you go! Enjoy them and take
care…” The salesman sent her off without another word or any advice or
guidance. Sarah walked out of the store, aware that all of the strange glances
she was receiving. She was slightly self- conscious of the looks being sent her
way, but decided that she would need to ignore them if she was going to enjoy
her new “glasses”.
“Start hangout with Molly” Sarah
commanded her glasses. Instantly she saw her best friend Molly’s image displayed
on the top right corner of the lenses, which placed her on top of a large
building in downtown Portland.
“Wow! How do you like them?” Molly
asked.
“They’re actually really great! Right
now you’re on top of the Hilton hotel!” They both laughed.
“Well, why don’t you come to my house
and show them to me?” Molly pleaded. Sarah giggled in compliance and began to
walk towards Molly’s house immediately. It was a beautiful day so instead of
taking a bus directly to Molly’s house Sarah decided to take the ten minute
walk.
“Open Facebook” she commanded to her
glasses. While walking down the busy sidewalk Sarah composed a Facebook status
about her new glasses, while people on the sidewalk dodged out of her way.
Sarah was oblivious to her surroundings. Instead focusing on the people walking
past her to make sure she wouldn’t run into them, she was composing chats,
tweeting, taking pictures and watching YouTube videos. Her glasses made her
blind. Sarah was becoming a robot, incapable of awareness. She was completely
absorbed in the cyber world of social media.
Sarah received a message from Molly on
Facebook, “Hey, where are you? Shouldn’t you be here by now?” Sarah replied
that she must’ve gotten turned around and distracted by the glasses.
“Glasses, directions to Molly’s house”
she commanded the glasses. A map popped up but instead it contained directions
to the local park in the opposite direction of Molly’s house. Sarah tried to
turn around but found that she had to follow the glasses’ instruction.
When she arrived at the park Sarah was
confused. What is going on? She
thought to herself. She looked around and saw that there were about thirty
people entering the park as well, all wearing Google Glasses. All of the people
wore confused expressions; no doubt they were lead to this location unwillingly
as well. Sarah opened her mouth to call out to the other people, but she could
not form words. Why are all of these
people here?
Sarah tried to move her body but she
was frozen in place. The glasses told her to move towards the fountain in the
center of the park, so she did. “Molly, help!” she wrote in a Facebook chat to
her best friend. “I’m trapped in my glasses….” Sarah tried to run fear coursing
through her body. Again, she remained stationed at the fountain, with more and
more people gathering around her. They were all robots, slaves to their
technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment