People are waiting in line for hours to get a pair of Snapchat Spectacles. These sunglasses allow you to take 10 second videos of whatever you’re seeing. It’s a first person view of your world that you can then share on your Snapchat Stories to allow your friends to take part in every second of your life. Meaningful or not.
Spectacles are only available from a vending machine that is currently touring the country causing a big stir. Having set up for a day each in Venice Beach and Big Sur California and today in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the exclusivity of these sunglasses is already evident in the fact that the $129 social media accessory is going for a few thousand dollars on EBay already. These things are especially popular with the teen and young adult crowd and all I have to say is “Oh boy. Get ready for even more useless oversharing.”
How do Spectacles Work?
You can just wear your Spectacles like regular sunglasses and use them whenever you’d like. You just tap a button on the top of the frame to take a “snap.” Snaps are 10 seconds long by default and lights on the inside and outside of the glasses indicate that your recording. The default setting for your snaps is to keep them private (which I like.) But you can share between your phone and spectacles then onto your Snapchat Story from there.
The devices are set for future updates and in-app purchases with microphones and sensors that will most definitely be used as improvements to function are released. I must admit that these things seem like they’re here to stay. As they have been released over the past week their vending machine is selling out of them.
What Should Parents Know?
I must admit that I am pretty bias towards discouraging your teen from sharing every little thing that they do in their lives online. I just see Snapchat Spectacles increasing a teen’s tendency to do exactly that. I also see a lot more involvement from brands with these Spectacles. If you’ve heard me speak or read much of my writing you’ll know that I don’t like allowing corporations to raise our kids up into the consumers they’d like them to be. There is definitely an opportunity for more direct marketing to our kids through these new peripherals.
All in all the issue isn’t just privacy and it’s not just about another dumb gadget to waste our time. We live in a culture where we share every single thing we do. Our children need to be taught when enough is enough. We have to help them understand that it isn’t safe or healthy for their online community to know where they are at all times. Spectacles are a cool tool. They’re a neat new product that will, most likely, be popular for a long time. They aren’t, however, a must have and they are not going to help you keep tabs on what your kids are doing online. They are probably more of a hinderance to your attempts at boundary setting.
Sneaky Sneaky?
At least without the Spectacles, your kids have to weigh the risk/reward of obviously pulling out their phone to record something. These glasses make it possible to record without really being noticed. Yes, there is a light to notify whoever you’re looking at that you are recording, but from how far is that visible? My stance is that Spectacles are a cool idea but in a world where we just don’t want our kids filmed and posted on other people’s social media sites, they are a bit too much.