Seoul on Display: How Global Screen Culture Will Affect Us

Korea Supermarket Screens

Jan Chipchase writes for the Atlantic on how the evolving design of the digital devices that are starting to fill our stores and schools will change the way we think, behave, and buy.

There are certain cities around the world where it's possible to learn about tomorrow's technology as it's being developed today. Tokyo -- still -- offers the most tightly integrated infrastructure, where smooth, technology-driven experiences take place when engaging in everyday actions, such as verifying personal identity, paying for goods, and buying tickets. Nairobi is an excellent destination for mobile banking. San Francisco is the center for startup thinking (and doing). And Seoul is the destination for the newest electronic displays, a place where you can immediately get immersed in daring new screen technologies.

.. The ubiquity of the mobile phone in South Korea is prompting innovation that bridges display screens and hand-held screens. Consider the recent installation of a completely virtual store by Korean supermarket Home Plus, a division of Tesco, in a Seoul subway station. At this store, life-sized images of food, milk cartons, and other groceries appear on a screen, as if placed on shelves. Busy commuters use their mobile phones to snap QR codes on the ersatz sundries to quickly order the real products online. The groceries are delivered by the time they reach home. Home Plus has reported that during a recent trial run of the virtual store, the company saw a 130 percent increase in online sales.
Of course, this display was more than just a cool example of screen culture. Every purchase made is recorded, and offers retailers and marketers data on what consumers are interested in, what their purchasing choices are. In the future, as screen culture proliferates around the world, this will be more of a common occurrence. Screens will read us; we will not only read them. This brings up the question of how our literacy of not only screens, but also our environments, will be altered forever. We will have to decide whether messages we see on signs that react to us, which change to our needs in real time based on how they acquire and process our demographic data is a deep violation of privacy or helpful, tailored information.

Read the whole article on the Atlantic.