Sure, nobody needs a shirt that does anything besides cover their body, but I bet it won't be long before you want one. Andrejevic discusses in his paper about smart clothing technology. Personally I find this concept fascinating. My initial reaction was ‘why not?’ we have digitized many other aspects of our lives, so why not take it one step further. I did not realize that this concept would be so repulsive to some people in our class until we began to discuss it.
People seemed especially offended by the ‘hug’ shirts that were used as an example during the presentation on Andrejevic’s article. I can see where the offense comes from, but I do not understand how some people have such a huge issue with this, considering how much of our communication is already mediated by technology.
There seems to always be a slight resistance when a new technology is introduced. It reminds me of reactions towards touch-screens. Many people felt that they would never use a computer that was completely touch-screen, and early forms of these technologies failed. However; Apple integrated this technology quite well by introducing it in technologies that people are less ‘attached’ to, like iPods. A touch screen iPod seemed cool, whereas a touch screen computer seemed inconvenient or complicated. Slowly they produced other products like the iPhone that were also touch screen. By the time the iPhone had become mainstream, users were much more comfortable with the idea of the touch screen, which is perhaps one of the reasons the iPad had so much immediate success.
I predict that smart-clothing technologies will be introduced with the same technique. Small, ‘fun’ additions first, in order to prepare the market for more highly technical fabrics.
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