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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.
the Google + team how they made their product so non-addictive.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
How about encouraging good parenting?
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that good parenting requires good parents. Does this mean we should prevent people from having kids if they are unable to demonstrate that they would be good parents? Try getting elected on that platform and see how far you get.
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.
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.