No screen time warning or content control here. The 3rd Eye allows would allow us to undulge in our smartphones even more. Came across this the other day while doing a bit of creative research. From 2021. We love the absurdity and whimsy of industrial innovation designer Minwook Paeng’s 3rd eye. 

The project uses an Arduino and gyroscope detection to basically know when you are looking down at your phone. It looks out for you and beeps if there’s a lamppost or something coming up.

There’s a really interesting narrative here about how we relate to the increased use of social platforms. Most conventional thinking goes that we must stop it, curtail it, control it. So we feel better when we see things like screen time reports from the platforms. Whilst all the while we know full well the platforms grow through increased usage. 

We ourselves enjoy using them so much that we aren’t willing to be parted from our phones – I lost mine a few weeks back and I felt totally lost, sadly. A social media manager once said to me “it’s disgusting the amount of time I spend on TikTok”. So how we navigate them culturally is really interesting.

I know this project is jokey, but thinking about positive ways we can live together with the platforms really is our only hope. Looking forward to production on this one Minwook.

The 3rd Eye : Evolution to Phono Sapiens(prototype) (2021)

Covered more fully on Yanko Design

Minwook Paeng’s portfolio on Behance

The post The work of Minwook Paeng explores our addiction with social media first appeared on Untitled Presents.