These Masochistic Glasses Zap You If You're Not Paying Attention

Have you ever begun to zone out during a lecture and wondered, "Boy, I sure could go for a stimulating vibration over my heart right now to get me back in the game"? Well, you're in luck, because researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have the product for you.

That product is called "AttentiveU," which is a pair of glasses that will fire various signals at the person wearing them if they sense that the wearer is not paying attention. These signals include auditory feedback to tell a person they are not paying attention, or for the more rambunctious, a vibration on the cheekbones or to a hidden, connected node attached to the body.

The researchers, Nataliya Kosmyna, Ph.D, Caitlin Morris, Thanh Nguyen, Pattie Maes, and Utkarsh Sarawgi, developed the glasses as a way to help focus one's attention in an increasingly distraction-filled world. A press release for the glasses states, "We envision a future in which people can decide when they want to be more attentive and can in those moments put on their AttentivU glasses to help them be focused." The above video showing off the glasses shows a woman using the glasses when she finds herself drifting off during a math lecture.

While this is theoretically an admirable goal, Twitter users were quick to note that such a device would be torturous to those with learning disabilities such as autism and ADHD.

In other words “torture neuroatypical children until they put up a good appearance of being neurotypical”. Brilliant idea. /s

— Becca 👩🏻‍🦰 (@rstoneham77) August 30, 2019

This is horrific. Almost certainly bad science, but utterly inhumane and ableist.

— tetrarchangel [quietly proud this month] (@tetrarchangel) August 30, 2019

Like I am not exaggerating. This seems almost purposefully designed to make kids with ADHD have a breakdown

— Fiona, Despite Everything, It's Still A Gay Tief (@GayestTiefling) August 30, 2019

The researchers noted that early tests of AttentiveU were only performed on "neurotypical" people (people without learning disabilities), and that they'd received positive feedback from the 100 participants. They also note the glasses are not designed to be worn 24/7. "We currently test it in different environments and situations with neurotypical adults only in a number of scenarios where high attention, performance and engagement are required (like sports)," they say. "We also start exploring directions beyond attention and feedback delivery for this system (cognitive load, fatigue, passive monitoring)."

As of this moment, there is no plan to use the glasses as a kind of "shock therapy" for people with learning disabilities, but the idea is certainly concerning enough to spark backlash, especially considering another school in Massachusetts is currently using shock therapy for neuroatypical children.