Did smartphones make us look down? Could AR glasses help us look up again?

In 2006, I remember my flip phone and T-Mobile was my network. I remember social media use wasn't really embedded in phones at the time. The early precursors to that obviously being AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger, depending on your phone of course. When smartphones really took off, which I'd argue would be 2008 to 2009 (I know iPhone camera out 2007), social media in its very prehistoric form started to rise. Now I want to be clear here. I am talking about social media through our handheld devices. Forums were already alive and brewing at that point.

As the use of social media grew over the following decade, we stopped looking up and always looked down. By 2017 (Musically) which is what I remember TikTok being formally, started turning social media into a 100% my life through a phone experience instead of actual interaction.

I bring all this up because I have recently grown more optimistic about the evolution of social media. I was never a downer on the topic but I noticed it really took us out of any given moment. I recently started using glasses with a built-in display and I started to wonder if social media, might actually become more social if our glasses are doing the recording instead of our phones.