Disconnect Angst: If Thine Eye Offend Thee

The word angst means a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. I think the best-known use of the word comes from the phrase teenage angst, which describes the rocky, turbulent, emotinoal roller coaster of adolescence. But teenage angst may have found a close competitor in disconnect angst - the feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity when forced to live life offline.

Thus, the appeal of finding new and "improved" ways of keeping us connected.

If you think it's hard to disconnect now, when all it takes is to simply put down that gadget and walk away, it'll only get harder as computing technology becomes part of our wardrobe, our accessories, and even our bodies.

In 2011 a group of researchers at the University of Washington successfully tested a contact lens that could not only improve functional eyesight but also included integrated wireless displays. Think: a computer monitor...in your eye. These contact lenses are a significant step along the way to developing unobtrusive "wearable computers" that keep one visually, tactilely, and wirelessly in contact with "the grid" at all hours of the day.

At that point, going "offline" may require nothing short of a miracle.

The above is excerpted from chapter 8 in #Hooked: The Pitfalls of Media, Technology and Social Networking by Dr. Gregory Jantz.