Buzz, Tap, Zap: The Attentional Economy of Haptic Wearables

• In Event: Attention! - I: Human/Machine Boundaries

Abstract

Contra the vast industry of contemporary technologies designed to capture and monetize our attention, so-called self-tracking technologies are designed to keep us attentive—to our time, our money, our steps, our selves. But recently a new type of personal tracking device has emerged on the scene: one whose aim is not to increase awareness of our daily patterns and rhythms so much as to guide them via haptic actuators. A range of posture-correcting devices buzz to straighten the backs of laptop slouchers without interrupting their work flow; wristbands vibrate when wearers idle for too long during waking hours, signaling that they should stand up or move; the Apple Watch “taps” users when it’s time to turn left or right on the way to a destination; the smart utensil HAPIfork buzzes in the eater’s mouth if her next bite is taken too quickly. Unlike biofeedback technologies of an earlier era that sought to cultivate continuous self-attention in users, these algorithmically driven haptic devices call users to momentary attention when needed—what I call actuated attention—and then release them back to an nonvigilant, unnoticing state. Through a close reading of the microrhythms of attention and inattention that the HAPIfork facilitates, the paper proposes that STS scholars move beyond the question of whether technology violates human attentional capacities and constrains agency to the more interesting (and politically actionable) question of what kinds of attention and agency specific technologies might enable or foreclose.

Author

• Natasha Schull, NYU - MCC