Snap Spectacles, From an Outsider Perspective
Snapchat, an Abbreviated Personal History
Sometime in late 2012, for about a month, I had a Snapchat account. This was the pre-stories and pre-video Snapchat, and while it was enjoyable to see the occasional ridiculous photo from the friends I had on the app (which wasn’t that many), in general it just didn’t really appeal to me. I unceremoniously deleted it from my phone. I remember thinking that Snapchat, still relatively new, was a passing fad.
In early 2013, I started a new teaching job at a middle school, just to find that Snapchat was the most popular app among my students. They used it exclusively as a selfie-sharing machine. I was amazed at the furious pace that they could take pictures of themselves in ever-so-slightly different poses, just to have them disappear forever from the phones of others within a couple seconds. I thought it was weird and chocked it up to the habits of 12-year olds.
At some point in 2014, my 21-year-old little brother got really into Snapchat stories and constantly talking about his own. He would always be clicking photos and videos, drawing on them, or writing cheeky captions about them, and then adding them to his current story. I had him explain stories to me multiple times and still didn’t get how it worked. It wasn’t until Instagram added stories that I finally got the gist of the concept. I still thought Snapchat was weird in 2014, and unappealing in general, and chocked up my brother’s use of it to the habits of 21-year-olds.
I could go on in this manner, but suffice it to say that you shouldn’t trust me to predict the viability of social media apps. I promise that I’m not *that* out of touch in general. I have just never “gotten” Snapchat, and I am confident in saying that I never will. My 2012-era account will always lie dormant, filters and stories be damned.
So, this is why this is an “outsider’s perspective.” This is not going to be about Snap’s newest offering and how it will change my own Snapchat habits because I don’t have any.
Specs: The Snapchat Present
Fast forward to 2016, and I am in grad school studying design and technology. I hear the buzz around Snap Spectacles, the company’s first foray into hardware of the wearable/prosthetic type (Vending machines! They are sold out instantly! They’re sooo shiny!), and I am like, “Meh, doesn’t apply to me. Also, busy with school/work, can’t be bothered to read articles.”
But then… I am given an assignment on the future of prosthetics and wearables and start thinking deeply about the machinery that we already do and potentially will add to our bodies to enhance human abilities and experiences. I’m not just talking “prosthetics” in the sense of replacing missing limbs, but rather a more general definition that would encompass something like Snap Spectacles (“Specs”). Does this sort of technology make us less human and more like the robots of science fiction stories and movies? Or do they perhaps make us even more human?
These questions are of course up for debate, and Specs are an interesting chapter in the exploration of this question. A much flashier and less nerdy-looking version of the failed Google Glass but with simpler functionality, Specs are sunglasses with a built-in camera that allow wearers to record 10-second Snaps that they can then sync with the app. Recording requires a single button tap on the side of the glasses; charging happens right in the case and you can purportedly get 100 10-second snaps out of each charge.
Adding to your story has never been easier or cooler looking, right? Reviews are starting to roll in on these things and aside from the look of them (The New York Times calls them “essentially a four-alarm fire on your face”), they are surprisingly positive. The biggest gripes, besides actually getting your hands on them, have to do with how easy it is screw up the footage (say, for example, if you have long hair that blows in front of the lens, or you take them off before the video is done recording); how the quality is ok but not as good as shooting on your phone; the fact that manipulating and transferring your videos is not the smoothest of processes (where are their UXers?); and they’re expensive at $130.
The flipside of all this griping is that Specs make it much easier to capture moments in your life and do so with much more emotional intensity. Farhad Manjoo from The New York Times describes it well: “Over the last decade, smartphone cameras have intruded upon every corner of life. This has been magical … but [using smartphones] also creates an uncomfortable distance. Spectacles collapse that distance. You can snap a memorable moment without ever leaving the moment. Your eyes are your viewfinder; just reach up and tap, and whatever you look at is recorded.” Many attribute this to the fact that Specs allow you to shoot video with a first-person POV, which most people don’t normally do when shooting with their phone. Sean O’Kane at The Verge says this is more like shooting “memories” rather than video.
I can understand this; the videos I have seen shot with Specs feel much more real because they look more like humans see the world. Reliving a 10-second blip in your day becomes much more visceral than the spectator or idealized viewpoint that normally comes along with video.
There is still some aspects of “removal” with Specs, however. If you are walking around outside with sunglasses on, it’s one thing. But what about when you are inside? I can’t imagine that most people would wear them around while indoors and be able to casually capture the moment as it’s happening. It would be more forced — “Oh wait! Let me put my Specs on so I can record what’s happening!” — and then, aren’t you just imitating the cell phone paradigm but with fancy sunglasses? If you were to be one of those people who decide to wear sunglasses inside, and even if you are more acceptably wearing them outside, there is still a barrier between you and your subject. There is still the hardware that most human film subjects will be aware of. If your goal is simply filming, this is not an issue. But if your goal is to capture life as it truly is, then you still have a problem. Many people alter their behavior when they are on camera, so you are still viewing life through a filter of sorts.
I might be getting too deep here — I’m not sure that the regular Specs user is really looking for an untainted record of life in this way, but it’s still something to think about. Will there come a day when a recording device exists in a contact lens, or even in our eyeballs, and we can record our moments without visible machinery and the sometimes-stigma that comes along with that?
My guess is yes. And just like today, when that day comes, we will be asking questions about what it means about our humanity.
