With our heads always bent down over our smartphones and being busy in the virtual world, we are in desperate need of a third eye to navigate the physical world safely. Paeng Min-wook, a designer from Korea, has come up with a solution – The Third Eye – to keep you safe in the real world!
The mobile phone is the most inventive technological invention. It has given humans the ability to connect with people and events all over the world. Things have become even more intimate by introducing smartphones. You can even know about what food a person four blocks away ate for dinner. Smartphones are so necessary and accessible that almost every person in a suburban setting will have the best phone at their fingertips. There is, however, a flip side to this story. Smartphones have become an addiction, whether or not you like it.
Smartphones are an addiction
Your smartphone has almost become a constant ticking time bomb: something or other keeps appearing on it. The desire to see this new update has taken over.
From hugging the phone first thing in the morning to kissing it goodnight, smartphones have taken over our lives. It is not uncommon to see people sitting across from each other at a table, eating but distracted by their phones. The worst is when you see people walking down the street with their heads buried in their phones. There have been incidents in which people have been involved in accidents and even died. This is the evidence that shows the extent of this smartphone addiction as the phone was more important to them than watching the road.
The Third Eye
Paeng Min-wook is a South Korean industrial and user experience designer. He has created something unique after working with South Korea’s top brands such as Hyundai, LG, and even Samsung. As a current Master’s student in Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art in London, he wishes to assist such phone addicts. He created a unique device that can be worn on the brow, and it looks like a robotic eyeball. Aside from time and life, smartphone addiction is destroying something else – the way humans stand. As more people bend forward, the bone in the neck becomes deformed and loses its natural curve.
This third eye from Korea has specific features and benefits, and they designed it to serve a purpose. It has a gyro sensor that opens the eye when the neck bends forward. This eye, which is placed on the forehead, sees what is in front of it and calculates the distance using sensor technology. If the user comes into contact with such an object, the third eye immediately signals the user to stop, saving them from injury or, in extreme cases, death.
While it is not the most visually appealing accessory, the designer from Korea claims they did not intend the third eye to be appealing. He says, “I intend it to make the wearer stand out and appear to be from outer space. This is his way of teaching these “phone sapiens” that life is more important than checking messages while walking down the street.”
In the end!
It is known as the all-seeing third eye, and while it is a fantastic invention, people must understand that it is designed to help them rather than increase their addiction. Innovation and engineering are wonderful in their own right, and Paeng Min-wook’s invention works. It has undoubtedly shown that humans require technology more than we realize.
