Futuristic Suit Makes You Feel What It’s Like To Be An Old Man
An exhibit, which opened on Friday at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City in the US lets users feel what it’s like to be an 85-year old man by walking a famous mile in your elders’ orthopaedic shoes. Just imagine how it would feel like to experience the halting speech with unclear voice, shivering hands, the hunched shuffle and the dimming senses of an aging man.
The futuristic suit in question is the R70i Age Suit, a robotic contraption complete with “augmented reality” goggles, which makes you feel like 85 once you slip in it. It is not exceptionally charming.
An attendant controls the fader and your vision dissolves into melty, grayed-out blobs, giving you a very strong experience of hallucinations. “This is called age-related macular degeneration,” the suit’s designer, Bran Ferren, said at a sneak peak on Thursday. Twiddling of few more knobs will introduce more effects, your hearing is reduced in slow continuous sound in the ears. A dosage of echo is added to the sound blend, interfering your speech and producing the effects of aphasia.
Now, it is the time to move about. Loaded with hardware and a computer, the suit has a weight of about 40 pounds, it is distributed as uncomfortably as possible.
“It’s going to get much worse,” guarantees Ferren, the suit’s inventor. “You haven’t lived.”
Exhaustive listing, inside and outer. Irritation in spots you didn’t know could hurt. Trouble urinating. Trouble not urinating. Watching your companions leaving you alone in the world. Watching yourself become irrelevant, and an object of pity or puzzlement if recognized by any means. Still, in only 10 minutes, the futuristic suit of aging will produce remarkable effects of dissatisfaction, wretchedness and sadness.
By allowing a younger generation to feel the effects of aging first-hand, the suit provides a newfound perspective that hopefully inspires a conversation with loved ones about getting older so, collectively, family and friends can better prepare for the future. Similarly, it makes you somewhat less prone to lose persistence and somewhat more liable to feel sympathy with the old age individuals throughout your life.
