Gates Foundation Gives $1.1 Million for Mood Bracelets

When I was in college we were given these scantron sheets to fill out to judge how well a teacher was doing. Imagine if you were in high school again and you had to wear a bracelet that was able to record biometrics to determine how interested you were during a lecture on the theory of relativity? That is exactly what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is trying to do.

The funds were dispersed in two separate grants to the National Center on Time and Learning and Clemson University totaling over $1.1 million dollars. The grants are trying to find out if “Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets which will determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers.”

Thats right, the bracelet is going to determine if the students are engaged in the current discussion. kind of Orwellian don’t you think? Some other people tend to think it is a waste of money saying, “That’s more than $1.1 million that could have been spent on things that schools actually need, such as books, teachers, librarians, etc.” I don’t know if I agree with that but that is her opinion.

The study of galvanic bracelets is part of the “emerging field of neuromarketing,” which “relies on biometric technologies to determine a participant’s emotional and cognitive response to certain stimuli.”

photo courtesy of MIT technologyreview.com