WiFi-SM Feel The Pain

“WiFi-SM is an Internet connected wireless device that you can fix on any part of your body. It automatically detects the information from approximately 4,500 news sources worldwide updated continuously and analyses them looking for specific keywords such as death, kill, murder, torture, rape, war, virus etc.
Each time the text of the news contains one of these keywords, your WiFi-SM device is activated through the WiFi network and provides you with an electric impulse. This impulse is calibrated so that you can feel a certain amount of pain, but is completely safe.”

Christopher Bruno's project, 'WiFi-SM,' advertises a fictional WiFi-enabled, wearable patch that gives the wearer a powerful jolt of electricity whenever any one of up to 4,500 news sources around the world produce selected keywords. Providing wearers with a shock allows them to 'feel' global pain, thus becoming more in touch with the world around them and assuaging any personal guilt they may theoretically feel at their own lack of legitimate feeling for the tragedies of their fellow man. Participants may to personalize the experience with the so-called "P2P (Pain-to-Pain) technology" which lets them set individual keywords and pain threshholds.

Bruno's "ad" highlights the pretense of modern existence and raises legitimate questions about desensitization in an era of advanced technology. With so much information available to us, people have to make choices about what they wish to view and read. Is it just human nature to avoid the negative? After all, we're all busy and it is easier to just play another round of Bejeweled than to give significant thought to the suffering of unknown people on the other side of the world. Yeah, and it is easier to just write a check once a year and send it off to some faceless charity than it is to seriously examine the state of the world and determine what actions might be taken to better it.