> it just won't catch on because people don't want to wear shit on their face all day and look like a moron
Social factors are a big thing, and while it pains me to say it (and your comment was worded in an unnecessarily offensive way) I do think that you might be at least partially right.
You are certainly right that social factors have a huge effect on the uptake of new technologies, but it's often hard to predict how those social factors will change and shape the uptake of new technology.
My example is text messages. Doesn't that seem like something only a total dork would like? I was a fairly early adopter of text messaging myself, and I certainly fit the 'poorly socialized nerd' stereotype, and my perception at the time was that text messaging was for people who were too poorly socialized or nervous to talk via voice. But that's not how text messages came to dominate. text messaging came to dominate, as far as I can tell, because it's seen as somehow rude to actually talk with someone who isn't physically in the room with you when other people are in the room with you. (It doesn't seem like it ought to be rude to me, but my social responses are not normal. I can certainly observe that the vast majority of people find that sort of thing rude, and I act accordingly.)
my point here is just that you are right to say that social perceptions matter in the uptake of these technologies, but probably premature in confidently stating that you understand what direction those social perceptions will push.
Social factors are a big thing, and while it pains me to say it (and your comment was worded in an unnecessarily offensive way) I do think that you might be at least partially right.
You are certainly right that social factors have a huge effect on the uptake of new technologies, but it's often hard to predict how those social factors will change and shape the uptake of new technology.
My example is text messages. Doesn't that seem like something only a total dork would like? I was a fairly early adopter of text messaging myself, and I certainly fit the 'poorly socialized nerd' stereotype, and my perception at the time was that text messaging was for people who were too poorly socialized or nervous to talk via voice. But that's not how text messages came to dominate. text messaging came to dominate, as far as I can tell, because it's seen as somehow rude to actually talk with someone who isn't physically in the room with you when other people are in the room with you. (It doesn't seem like it ought to be rude to me, but my social responses are not normal. I can certainly observe that the vast majority of people find that sort of thing rude, and I act accordingly.)
my point here is just that you are right to say that social perceptions matter in the uptake of these technologies, but probably premature in confidently stating that you understand what direction those social perceptions will push.