Check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/user/neurowear?feature=autoshare#p/u/0/NMak73p3KY0
Cute right? Fuzzy cat ears showing whether you are attentive or relaxed. Funny commercial showing a woman, ears rising when she is interested in a man, his disinterest in her and the ears drooping showing she gives up and moves on. Clever and totally non-threatening.
This technology uses neuroscience to harness the brain waves we all give off when we think and feel. Take this to the next level and you might see a scenario like this one:
A classroom full of students bent over their computer tablets working on the lessons of the day. Their headgear all indicating green - they are paying attention and engaged in learning. Then we notice little Joey in the corner. His eyes keep drifting around his screen, his imagination is kicking in and his attention is wandering. We know this because even though he is looking at his computer his indicator headgear is fluctuating between yellow and red. Finally it settles into full red and the teacher calls him out.
Still sound harmless? They are just kids after all. It would be good for the teacher to know if they are on task so she can help them focus and knows when they need a challenge. Blah, blah, blah.
I value my First Amendment rights too much to want to see this played out - jobs requiring employees to wear such devices, or for public safety so everyone can tell who’s a threat or even a little cranky. Sound Orwellian? It is. Imagine a world where anyone can see what you are feeling. Forget poker face or the boss is saying something insane face, there will be no more hiding.
Here's what I want to know:
Since we would have to learn to control our thoughts so we don’t freely share them could this be considered a form of mind control?
Do you think our government would let this become anything more than recreational?
Lola, I agree that it isn't hard to imagine this kind of monitoring in the workplace.
ReplyDeleteWhile I only skimmed the Jan. 2011 article cited below, author and Assistant Professor of Business Ethics and Legal Studies in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, Corey Ciocchetti writes extensively about the issue of monitoring technology in the workplace in terms of privacy issues and the law. Ciocchetti concludes that while employers might view monitoring as a means of increasing productivity, avoiding harassment lawsuit,etc, "excessive and unreasonable monitoring can: (1) invade an employee’s reasonable expectation of privacy, (2) lead employees to sneak around to conduct personal activities on work time, (3) lower morale, (4) cause employees to complain and, potentially, quit and (5) cause employees to fear using equipment even for benign work purposes."
Ciocchetti also opines that the legal system needs to respond to this issue in favor of "a balanced monitoring framework that walks the fine line between creating efficient workplaces and avoiding excessive invasions of employee privacy."
Incidentally, I agree with Ciocchetti.
_Source_
Ciocchetti, Corey A. "The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty-First Century Framework for Employee Monitoring." Selected Works of Corey A Ciocchetti. Jan. 2011. Web. 18 May 2011.
I also see a definite issue with this technology. Can we--and _should_ we--expect "little Joey" to pay attention to us all the time he is in school? The younger the child, the shorter the attention span; this is the nature of childhood. And should we expect our employees to be focused only on their tasks? I doubt even CEOs think only of work-related thoughts while they're at the office--family life, personal problems, and yes, even what you might have for lunch will all pop into your head sometime during the day. It's impossible to stay on a task so thoroughly and completely that your mind won't wander some--it's human nature. If you have particularly sensitive headgear, even the slightest mind-wander may trigger that red light. And that doesn't take into consideration how the headgear might react to a person with ADD or ADHD or other disorders.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that _if_ this technology actually _did_ start to modify behavior, then yes, I think you'd have a strong case for it being mind control. I also think that by so stringently controlling thoughts for so long during the day (remember that 8-5 is a standard day; that's 9 hours, 8 if you get an hour lunchbreak _and_ are allowed to remove your headgear), you'll also have some very unhealthy workers. There are more effective, less destructive ways of getting more from your employees than by trying to control their thoughts and emotions.
Lisa, I'm not sure I agree. Well I DO agree that we should be able to expect our privacy to be respected in the workplace I also agree that these materials (computers and our work time) are not ours. Employers should expect that when people are at work being paid for their time that they are actually working. The problem is that some people can not or chose not to act ethically and responsibly and work at work. What's an employer to do? We've gotten the e-mail about work computers not being used for any personal searching or e-mail, etc. We've been told to blog, except for the library blog, on our own time. I have seen it lower morale as well. Of course, if you look carefully it lowers the morale of those who are misusing the computers to begin with. I don't have a lot of sympathy for that.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't want to see happen is that my every thought or feeling is out there for all to see; that my employer might know that I disagree with something without my brain being able to formulate a diplomatic argument.
I definitely think this is a form of mind control. We're all human and bound to drift off during the day. It would be ridiculous for us to be punished because we had one moment of daydreaming. If this became reality in the work place we would have to learn to control our every emotion, which is not healthy.
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty scary and I definitely see it as mind control. If we would always be judged on what we thought, then we would always control our thoughts to what those in charge wanted them to be. We really wouldn't have freedom of thought with this type of device.
ReplyDelete