Mirror Shows How People Age Based on Lifestyle

Companies are creating special mirrors that are able to show how people age in time. The mirror shows how they will look if they have a normal lifestyle or if they smoke or drink too much.

Accenture Technology Labs has developed a new digital device mirror called the “persuasive mirror” that will show how bad habits affects your face with time. The user inputs about their lifestyle and uploads their digital photo. The mirror then shows how they will age, six months from now.

The main purpose for this mirror is to show how bad habits such as cigarettes, alcohol, overeating and sunbathing can be harmful to health and by showing their impact on the face’s health they want others to give up their habits.

Andrew Fano, of Accenture Technology Labs told ABC News:

A picture is worth a thousand warnings…On the one hand it's to scare you and on the other it's to reward you."

The software will then show the before and after images and the user can see the differences between them.

Accenture's persuasive mirror is not on the market yet. Researchers at the University of California at San Diego are studying the mirror's effect on people's behavior. The study is expected to be out in May, and then Accenture plans to fine tune the mirror before releasing it to the medical community.

Another technology developed by Aprilage Development works in a similar way, but allows you to look further down into the future. ABC’s Andrea Canning did this test and you can see her picture above. She found it interesting and scary of what will happen if she maintained her smoking habits.

This software is also used to find missing children.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, author of the popular "You" series of books on healthy living, has used the same technology to scare smokers straight on the "Oprah Winfrey Show."

Fano told ABC News:

A basic mirror is essentially a technology we turn to on a daily basis that does influence our decisions, whether we need to lose weight, what we decide to wear, how we feel about ourselves,"

He hopes people will do the same with their “persuasive mirror” and have a healthier lifestyle.

Will you use such a mirror to guide you?