Go for Glass: Brin calls smartphones 'emasculating', sparks fierce online debate

At a TED Conference in California, Google co-founder Sergey Brin showed off his pet Google Glass Project. While highlighting the features of Glass, Brin also described smartphones as emasculating , a remark that seems to have sparked off quite a debate both on Twitter and technology blogs. “You are just rubbing this featureless piece of glass. There isn’t anything to feel”, said Brin.

For instance the headline on Venture Beat goes, Sergey Brin calls smartphones ’emasculating’ - but dorky Google Glass A-OK and goes on to say, that invoking the cellphone’s social stigma in an attempt to justify the existence of Google Glass may seem clever, but it’s really not.

The other question that a lot of people are asking if isn’thypocriticalof Brin to criticise smartphones, considering that they do generate a significant amount of revenue for the company.

Many are also wondering if emasculating was indeed the word that Brin meant to use or whether he got confused. This piece on Slate , states,

Our first thought was that Brin had misconstrued “emasculating” to mean something like “impersonal” or “depressing.” (Ok, that was our second thought. Our first thought was that his phrasing-“standing around and just rubbing this…piece”-belonged in a bawdy Shakespearean pun.) We also wondered whether it wasn’t a bit unmanly to worry so much about one’s manhood and all the 4-inch apparati arrayed against it. But then we considered: Maybe the experience of using a smartphone does sap a guy’s mojo. After all, the intense feelings of dependence our devices can inspire seem incongruous with the strength and autonomy we expect from “real men.”

And while the emasculating remark is gathering all the attention right now, this blog by Mark Hurst on Creative Good , raises some very important questions how Google Glass can potentially change the way users with interact with one another and what it means for our personal lives.

He writes,

Google Glass is like one camera car for each of the thousands, possibly millions, of people who will wear the device … From now on, starting today, anywhere you go within range of a Google Glass device, everything you do could be recorded and uploaded to Google’s cloud, and stored there for the rest of your life. You won’t know if you’re being recorded or not; and even if you do, you’ll have no way to stop it.

And that, my friends, is the experience that Google Glass creates. That is the experience we should be thinking about. The most important Google Glass experience is not the user experience - it’s the experience of everyone else. The experience of being a citizen, in public, is about to change.

He is right to point out that Glass will change interpersonal relations greatly perhaps more than smartphones have done. Brin might be right in stating that smartphones do make people anti-social. How often have we not broken off a conversation to check email or Facebook message on our phones? It’s true we’ve all done that.

But imagine have something right in-front of your eyes, that pops up search queries, records etc all at voice command. It sounds cool but it will also make personal relations much creepier.

Google Glass video