Wearable Tech Is Good For Your Manners And Your Job

One of the criticisms most often levelled at smartphones, tablets and social media is that they making people ruder. We’ve all seen it – whether you sat on a bus, walking down the street or eating at a fancy restaurant, there are always some people who are oblivious to their surroundings and have their head stuck in a gadget. It can infuriate people sat with them, irritate people around them and have a negative effect of their enjoyment of different situations.

Wearable tech has the ability to change all that. Devices such as smart watches can remove you from the closed world of staring at a phone by providing you with all your ‘must have’ information through a simple glance at your wrist. It means more face-to-face time with family, friends and colleagues.

The distinction of colleagues is an important one. Whereas when smartphones were first widely adopted they made connecting and collaboration easier, we now need innovative ideas in order to reduce our reliance on them.

It’s important to drag ourselves away from the propensity to check our phone’s ever beep and flash when at work. Not only is it equally as rude as outside the office, but it also makes you less likely to miss vital information. Imagine a long meeting – if you stop concentrating at a critical moment you might the most important take-away message, yet with a smart watch you can easily look at your wrist to see what notification arrived whilst also remaining both polite and alert. It removes the need for the ‘device barrier’ to be erected but still means you won’t be over-faced with countless notifications when you eventually get back to your desk.

Of course, the importance and potential of hands-free notifications in the Workplace goes above and beyond simple office usage. Arguably, the industries that will gain most value are those where human interaction, personal service or employee roles make using a phone either impossible, dangerous, or impractical.

A good example are people who work in hospitals and other healthcare establishments, for example – paramedics and first responders. In these environments, information and other essential data is of the utmost importance – it can often be the difference between life and death. Yet, at the same time, taking out your phone to check on the status of a team member, important piece of equipment or a medical supply is simply not an option. Hands-free smart watches have the ability to present all this crucial information without the person in question having to leave their position or even miss a beat.

Our lives are being changed by technology, and while smartphones have been a revelation, it is now time for more effective, useful and practical technology to take their place.

By Daniel Price