(ORDO NEWS) — In an attempt to explore the relationship people have with their modern day accessories such as smartphones and smartwatches, researchers have recently created smartwatches that run on living organisms.
Devices such as smartphones, smartwatches and laptops have become a part of our daily lives and scientific experiments have shown that many people feel they cannot live without them.
What if there was a way to feel more attached to these gadgets that would make us think twice before getting rid of them?
Inspired by the Japanese toy Tamagotchi, scientists at the University of Chicago have created a unique type of smartwatch that only functions if the living organism inside is kept alive.
The idea behind the project was to build a smartwatch around a slime mold, a single-celled organism capable of electricity.
To keep the watch in working order, users will have to keep the mold alive. If the mold dies, the device will stop functioning.
University of Chicago scientists Jasmine Lou and Pedro Lopez, who created this intriguing smartwatch, wanted to see if the introduction of tech gadgets would literally change the way we view them.
They created a case attached to a smartwatch and placed a species of slime mold known as Physarum polycephalum inside it.
In order to use one of the key functions of the accessory – heart rate monitoring, they need to keep the mold alive, nourishing it and caring for it.
How it works: The slime mold is placed on one side of the case, and as it is fed with a mixture of water and oatmeal, it grows to the other side of the case, forming an electrical circuit that activates the heart rate monitor function. If the mold is ignored, it goes dormant and the circuit shuts down.
Interestingly, users can forget about their favorite slime mold for days, months, or even years, as it can be easily “revived” by resuming care of it.
But the scientists wanted to know if the mere knowledge that there is a living, dormant organism there influences people’s relationship with the gadget.
“A lot of research into human-computer interaction is motivated to make it easier and faster to use,” Lopez said.
“But Jasmine thought there should be more attention.
You need to take care of him and feed him every day, just to think about it. So it’s half art, half research work.”
After testing the gadget, the scientists decided to do a little experiment, so they gave five slime mold-powered smartwatches to five people for two weeks.
During the first week, the participants were asked to feed the mold until it grew large enough to activate the heart monitoring function, then, during the second week, they were asked to stop feeding the body until it was dry.
Throughout the experiment, they were asked to write about their impressions of the gadget and answer a few questions.
The results showed that people became significantly more attached to their smartwatches, some even calling them or asking other people to feed them when they couldn’t.
Even more shocking was the reaction to the second phase of the experiment, when participants expressed feelings of guilt or even grief at seeing their slime mold disappear.
We’ll probably never see a commercial version of this mold-powered smartwatch, but that wasn’t the idea behind this intriguing experiment.
The scientists only wanted to emphasize the importance of emotional attachment and perhaps even inspire gadget designers to create devices that induce attachment and mutual benefit, rather than generic tools intended solely for consumption.
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