Meta’s new launches - the Meta Display AR glasses and controller - are undoubtedly feats of technical wizardry and next-level experience design.
Yet
My interest in trying them is somewhere between morbid curiosity and less than zero.
Why? They are the wrong kind of magic - in fact they are huge leaps in the opposite direction away from where I want to spend my attention, energy, and resources.
There will be plenty of people who love these devices and the new interactions they enable. Some folks will be thrilled.
I am not those folks. Though I work in technology, I try to maximize time without technology: flying through the woods on a bike or skis, and fully present with people I care about. I’m bullish on technology that gives me more of this.
My goals for personal technology are:
Get out of my face, not onto my face.
More asynchronous, not more interaction.
Experiences that are more visceral, not virtual.
Some former colleagues of mine, whom I hold in the highest regard, have worked on them and kudos to the challenges they have had to overcome, over a long Product journey, in order to ship. I applaud the work.
However
In a world where smartphones begat screentime that’s measured and, for many of us, minimized - a new set of interfaces that allow always-present displays with wearble microgesture controls seem in opposition to intentional living.
Superintelligence, the other big bet by Zuck & Co, seems to be covering the other end of the spectrum: wearables harvesting more human attention, while AI can free up attention for human thriving.