Slashdot Mirror
The Tech Industry's War On Kids (curry.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader RoccamOccam summarizes an article now circulating on the web sites of several schools:
Child and adolescent psychologist Richard Freed writes, "...parents have no idea that lurking behind their kids' screens and phones are a multitude of psychologists, neuroscientists, and social science experts who use their knowledge of psychological vulnerabilities to devise products that capture kids' attention for the sake of industry profit. What these parents and most of the world have yet to grasp is that psychology—a discipline that we associate with healing—is now being used as a weapon against children."
Stanford psychology researcher B.J. Fogg, has developed the "Fogg Behavior Model", which he claims is a well-tested method to change behavior and, in its simplified form, involves three primary factors: motivation, ability, and triggers. Describing how his formula is effective at getting people to use a social network, the psychologist says in an academic paper that a key motivator is users' desire for "social acceptance," although he says an even more powerful motivator is the desire "to avoid being socially rejected."
Ramsay Brown, the founder of Dopamine Labs, says in a KQED Science article, "We have now developed a rigorous technology of the human mind, and that is both exciting and terrifying. We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behavior in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design."
Stanford psychology researcher B.J. Fogg, has developed the "Fogg Behavior Model", which he claims is a well-tested method to change behavior and, in its simplified form, involves three primary factors: motivation, ability, and triggers. Describing how his formula is effective at getting people to use a social network, the psychologist says in an academic paper that a key motivator is users' desire for "social acceptance," although he says an even more powerful motivator is the desire "to avoid being socially rejected."
Ramsay Brown, the founder of Dopamine Labs, says in a KQED Science article, "We have now developed a rigorous technology of the human mind, and that is both exciting and terrifying. We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behavior in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design."
As long as they don't come to your house and shoot you then "War" is a misnomer. More like persuasion.
Why would we think this is only happening to kids? The adults are the ones with the money...
You think it has more impact? On Slashdot?
By the way, calling something a "war on..." is usually in the same league as adding "-gate" to something: A weak attempt to make something sound interesting and scandalous that nobody would otherwise give 2 fucks about.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In other words, kids, please don't grow up to become like your parents!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most capitalists are sick ****s who'd sell your children to pedophiles if it meant they could make a 'legal' taxable profit out of it.
You mean compared to pedophiles who make a legal non-taxable profit? Pretty much every religious and quasi-religious group (be they Nazis or SJWs) makes indoctrination of children from the earliest possible age one of their top priorities.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Corporations putting profit before moral isn't news - Big Tobacco still earns billions every year by turning children into addicts.
But it is somewhat new that people of the same profession now warn the public about their colleagues being only after your money... as if we didn't know that already.
This is not the "Tech Industry"'s war on kids, it's the Marketing Industry's, the propagandists, the people shapers. It's not even new, Vance Packard was warning about this in the 1950s, and he wasn't the only one. The marketers they've had over 60 years since then to refine their techniques.
The tech - smartphones, internet, whatever - is just a new tool that they've adopted and twisted to their purposes. Unfortunately, it's a very effective tool for them - made even more effective by decades of habituating people to ubiquitous propaganda.
Marketing is one of the greatest evils ever to be invented. A crime against humanity - and should be prosecuted and sentenced as such.