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Former Google/Facebook/Mozilla Employees Will Fight Addictive Technologies (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Quartz:
A new alliance made up of former Silicon Valley cronies has aseembled to challenge the technological Frankenstein they've collectively created. The Center for Humane Technology is a group comprising former employees and pals of Google, Facebook, and Mozilla. The nonprofit launches today (Feb. 4) in the hopes that it can raise awareness about the societal tolls of technology, which its members believe are inherently addictive. The group will lobby for a bill to research the effects of technology on children's health... On Feb. 7, the group's members will participate in a conference focused on digital health for kids, hosted by the nonprofit Common Sense.
The group also plans an anti-tech addiction ad campaign at 55,000 schools across America, and has another $50 million in media airtime donated by partners which include Comcast and DirecTV.
The group's co-founder, a former Google design ethicist, told Quartz that tech companies "profit by drilling into our brains to pull the attention out of it, by using persuasion techniques to keep [us] hooked." And the group's web page argues that "What began as a race to monetize our attention is now eroding the pillars of our society: mental health, democracy, social relationships, and our children."
The group also plans an anti-tech addiction ad campaign at 55,000 schools across America, and has another $50 million in media airtime donated by partners which include Comcast and DirecTV.
The group's co-founder, a former Google design ethicist, told Quartz that tech companies "profit by drilling into our brains to pull the attention out of it, by using persuasion techniques to keep [us] hooked." And the group's web page argues that "What began as a race to monetize our attention is now eroding the pillars of our society: mental health, democracy, social relationships, and our children."
The discussion about the addictive and manipulative effects of social media has started long before Clinton considered (officially) becoming president. The topic was hot in 2014 (if I recall correctly) and may have been before that.
If you check Google scholar the first research in that area is from 2010. So this started with Obama.
the Google + team how they made their product so non-addictive.
This is more BS social justice warrior stuff. Who gets to say how people spend their time anyway? If people use these technologies a lot, it's because they want to. Who are we or they to criticize? If they want to use the technologies less, they are free to do so.
I get a real thrill when I create something really awesome.... You know that feeling... :) That Coding feeling... sometimes its all you can think about... you bump into walls when you got your mind set on a problem... lol Is that Bad?
[($)]
Actually no, there is tons of evidence this goes back to the 50's or before.
It's like with the banks. You've got these talented and nerdy characters that first work for a big bank, ripping off people in legal ways, and then when they've made a lot of money they purify themselves by going to work for an organisation which monitors the banking system. I don't know if I should condemn them, they're not less moral than other people, but they're certainly no moral guides.
A fucking what? Is that what people do when they fail the exam to be UX facilitator?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I have to agree here. This is the usual anti-tech can't-we-just-get-in-touch-with-our-human-side-again stuff.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
The victims. But these people are using technology, not infringing on anyone else's freedom.
Nope, thank goodness I have the freedom to not want to. But it's a shame others here can't if they wanted to. Also, fuck off.
I don't have to disagree but I certainly do.When an addictive substance or technology is developed you need to develop the insight and the tools to allow people to control it, independent of possible policy decisions.
What you are saying is 'I don't have a clue so I'll dismiss it as emotional anti-tech'. If research shows that allowing yourself to be drawn into this or that technology leads to an inability to read a book or inability to just sit and think without visual or auditive stimuli, and the inability to care about that, then at least you can take it in account.
Remember Douglas Engelbart? Apart from the famous "mother of all demos" there was his philosophy which loosely says that technology should help boost IQ not subvert or replace it, as has largely happened.
Addiction is not itself the entire problem. We are addicted to many things that are good. Like oxygen. Or food. Or love.
I'm all for not getting people hooked on things that harm them (like Facebook or Reddit etc). But in the process we should not ruin the good parts of technology either! Otherwise we have created harm to fight harm, as is so typical for us still-in-the-dark-ages humans.
Nowadays, it has become far too fashionable, to obsess over a nostalgic view of a better past (that never existed) and over minimalism, due to everybody being so ridiculously afraid of the world that it must be considered a mental illness. And this very much has the smell of that.
Let's create a win-win here, OK?
Whenever Sen. Ed Markey (D-Salem 1680) lets fly on some science/tech subject, he is invariably dead wrong, and the best course of action is to do the opposite on whatever issue he is spouting about this time. I have never known my personal Markey Index to fail.
First of all, the headline on this article is silly. What are Silicon Valley manufacturers supposed to do - intentionally make their products less attractive to consumers? The linked article focuses on 'tech addiction' as being the problem, and we have been here before. I have been around long enough to remember when tech addiction was phrased in the press as "teenagers" talking for hours on the old black plug-in wall telephone. Young people were offered this new mechanism for keeping in touch when they were not physically together, and they embraced it. Over time, telephony was integrated into the general culture and became part of the human background.
Then there was the time when television was going to make zombies of us all, with nobody stepping outside ever again, and the rise of cars not just as competition for public transit, but as a place for "teenagers" to Have Sex. Note the theme developing here?
So now that "teenagers" have discovered the smartphone this time, it has enabled a fad for social media. Though the idea that we would all drop everything to become addicted to Facebook is already dated, pearls are still being clutched over the possibility that some social medium will become mental Fentanyl. But now that Markey is involved, I know that can't happen.
How about encouraging good parenting? Lot of the problems these people created was a direct result of addictive technology. But it also created a connection for bullying, and other bad behavior. But a lack of parenting to monitor this behavior and limit technology addiction is more about bad parenting. Giving kids a Facebook user account in grade school or even a $800 smartphone that you do not monitor as a parent is certainly a prime contributor to kids abusing technology. How about the other gorilla in the room gaming, tv consumption, or a lack of real social interaction. We have a bunch of young people who can't function face to face with people. Everything is done by technology. But are people who embraced this previous good choices for stopping it? I seriously doubt it.
An addiction is something someone wants so much, that it affects their ability to lead a normal life. Don't presume to lecture me on addiction. I've been addicted to many things. But to call me righteous for saying that the assists value proposition is not up to you..... that's pompous and arrogant. They get to decide for themselves, addiction, fetish, whatever's in their minds and rights to want, so long as they aren't directly harming another person by their choices, or violating anyone else's freedom, I'm ok with. To not be would be critical and snooty. Multiple people here can't seem to get that and believe they know better than those who choose differently, and take that self-righteous attitude to justify their SJW bullshit. The addict is free, and you can't question their motive to remove their freedom. It's what men and women in uniform die to protect.
Having an option to do something, in this case something very trivial like posting in Facebook, does not make that something addictive.
It's trivial to get up and walk away from a card game, and yet thousands of addicts are sitting in Las Vegas right now unable to do just that.
And if this is a "trivial" problem in society, then it should be trivially easy to tell a social media junkie to quit cold turkey. Try that on a handful of your adult friends or their teenage children and see how that works out.
Perhaps a dopamine addiction?
Keywords: Skinner box, dopamine, Facebook.
Bill Maher asks an interesting question here on ethics, and I don't think it was properly answered. How can you even be ethical when what you're doing is manipulating people?
Is it unethical to manipulate people away from eating laundry detergent pods?
remove all traces of internet from your home, cancel your mobile internet subscriptions, shutdown your router and wifi access points!
now enjoy your new addictive-free life and go watch some TV.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Your posts are incoherent. Other people, associations, and companies can also do whatever they want, as long as they harm no persons, and that certainly includes fighting against internet addiction or other forms of addiction.
So is this the start of the tech #metoo movement? Spend years agreeing to doing things to get ahead in your career, then once you get established now turn around and complain about how you were used?
They get to decide for themselves, addiction, fetish, whatever's in their minds and rights to want, so long as they aren't directly harming another person by their choices, or violating anyone else's freedom, I'm ok with.
It's pretty damn obvious for the family who lost a loved one due to an addict who couldn't put the phone down and drive that this IS directly harming others. The freedom to live a long and joyful life was taken in that scenario, and it's a scenario that seems to be playing out more and more these days. Addiction affects ones ability to make rational and safe decisions, which quite often creates innocent victims.
I no longer fear the drunk driver on the road. I fear the distracted social media junkie, because there's a shitload more of those addicts on the road, and driving a car is something that the overwhelming majority of us have to do on a daily basis. It's likely the most dangerous activity you do on a regular basis in your life, and 40,000 people in the US lose their life every year doing it.
And didn’t a large number of people from the tech industry work for the Obama administration, or at least were consultants?
This is the same reasoning that happens with serial gamblers. I, twice a year buy a national lottery ticket, well knowing that the chances to win are slim, and always buy half a dozen ticket during the Patron Saint celebrations, because the money will go to repair the church. I actually won a toaster once.
Other people wilt start to spend all the money on slot machines.
HAving a technology that is highly addictive could be dangerous to some people, and a thing done mainly to serve ads an make people stay on a site for this, could become an addiction for some people.
We already have the Ministry of Alternative Facts.
You mean CNN?
Aseembled? We don't need to steenkin' aseemble!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So instead of good parenting we need more quasi-penal bureaucrats and institutions. Brilliant!
A lot of this criticism of changes to technology affecting our day-to-day lives comes from "enlightened" individuals who assume that others are too stupid to know what's best for themselves or have any self control. This is not that that different from people, both liberal and conservative, who assume that single moms, who collect welfare welfare, don't know how to properly use the money, or are too dumb or uneducated to do so. "Don't give that homeless mom $5 for gas, she's going to buy Newports with it." It's patronizing. It's disgusting.
When an addictive substance or technology is developed you need to develop the insight and the tools to allow people to control it...
Making a substance or technology "addictive" is a major goal of just about every marketed technology and service.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
.... how these kids that grew up with an ipad glued to their face turn out.
A goal which can be tolerated as long as it cannot be achieved.
I stand corrected; I've thought for a long time now that social media had become cancerous spontaneously, now I see it's cancerous by design. Time for some Digital Chemo.
We should take the warning signs off and let nature take its course. We'd end up with a stronger society. People who eat detergent pods are too stupid to live and should never be allowed to pass their genes on.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Considering most states have outlawed texting and driving. Why would you use that as an example since it is already against the law in most states?
Drinking and driving has been outlawed in every state for decades, and yet how many people die every year? "We made a law, problem solved!" isn't the way this works, and I used it as an example because it's a rather big fucking problem. Damn near every licensed driver on the road carries a distraction device with them in the car. That's a considerable difference when comparing it to any other type of distraction (drunk, drugged, etc.)
Do the punishments for texting and driving need to be increased?
Uh, no, I'd say they need to be established first. Preferably something beyond a slap on the wrist, and something that would actually create a deterrent.
I don't think anyone is arguing that texting while driving is in anyway acceptable.
A rather large lack of enforcement and punishment speaks volumes. Acceptable or not, we don't seem to give enough of a shit about it.
Alcohol is a substance that has physical symptoms from withdrawals. Social media technology is scratching a psychological itch. Let's not conflate the two as equivalent dangers in addiction.
Addiction is addiction, so let's not try and split hairs here. If someone has an addiction problem, it holds great power over them, and has the ability to manifest itself in many different ways, to include creating innocent victims. And withdrawal symptoms are observed across the entire spectrum of addiction. If you don't believe that, try taking a teenagers cell phone away.
I was feeling even more cynical than you. "Wait , I made my millions now this is BAAAD."
Yeah, CNN, the government agency that coined the phrase "alternative facts". Duh. What don't you understand?