The social construction of a Glasshole: Google Glass and multiactivity in social interaction

This article concerns the smartglass technology Google Glass (GG). Five different settings with different participants have been video recorded and analysed. The article builds upon ethnomethodology and conversation analysis with a focus on how the intersubjective turntaking system is challenged when a participant is using GG. The article presents three overall issues and associated analysis of three examples of GG use in multiactivity settings. The analysis shows how 1) object orientation and identity, 2) private experience and knowledge, and 3) turn-taking and participation are key issues in GG-related multiparty and multiactivity social interaction. The term Glasshole, which has been used in the media for people using GG in somehow rude ways, is in this article more precisely understood as a person being conversationally inappropriate in terms of e.g. misspeaking, producing overlap, and producing unfamiliar actions such as staring out into the open robotically. The article concludes by discussing implications for future design, with a focus on future technologies’ ability to provide information that fits into real-time social interaction.