Will Eye Tracking Be Used to Monitor Your Job Performance?
A recent post at the Harvard Business Review discusses several subjects we like to cover at the Eye Tracking Update blog. It’s an entertaining piece in which the author speaks to the state of technology as it stands today while aiding in the automotive industry, and continually pushing forward as innovations grow increasingly complex.
He raises a good point. If modern cars have endless new features that keep us focused and safe, why shouldn’t other applications? Mercedes advertisements feature a somber voice telling tales of how smart cars have saved lives. The author saw the ad and began to wonder why his phone or computer wasn’t yet on the same level. Smart cars have constant monitors that let the driver know if they’re making a wrong turn, bumping into a curb, drifting to another lane, and even potentially falling asleep behind the wheel.
With organizations increasingly employing innovative technologies and digital applications in their technology, it’s possible that smart phones, tablets, and computers start incorporating attention-monitoring applications as well.
The author goes on to discuss potentially creepy deployment of these sorts of monitoring devices that would have privacy and civil liberties advocates lining up outside the courthouse. The technology doesn’t yet exist, but in the age of digital devices, it’s quite possible that systems be equipped with ways to monitor active or passive engagement with a machine.
To be clear – these would be tools to help monitor and analyze your attention. The article mentions a call center where one company is experimenting with realtime voice stress analyzers and other physiological diagnostic tools that can determine whether or not an employee is fully engaged while at work.
As an employer, you don’t want your employee to be sleeping on the job. And as a customer or patron, employee attentiveness can sometimes be a life or death situation. If you were going under surgery, wouldn’t you want a device like that, something to let you know if your anesthesiologist or surgeon had his mind somewhere else?
The article mentions cars that can now be programmed not to start if they sense alcohol on the driver’s breath. This is a noble endeavor.
But seriously, how rigorously do we want to be monitored? How rigorously do we want to monitor our employee or fellow employee’s minds? We have cameras record their workplace, their phone calls, and monitor their web browsing in some places. A few more steps and we’re well into an environment like 1984 or Minority Report.
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