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| | | -- By ShahabPournaghshband - 05 Jan 2022 | |
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< | My cognitive abilities are decaying, and I feel as if I am helplessly watching it happen. As I leave my apartment, I check my phone. As I hop on the train, I check my phone. Before I enter class, I check my phone. Hundreds of times a day. Just to brainlessly scroll through Instagram or Twitter, receiving a hit of dopamine from posts that add no healthy value to my life. I am fortunate enough to be aware of the negative effects social media and mobile devices are having on my brain; so many people, many of them “digital natives” born into this age of technology, will never emerge from this endless absorption. Smartphones have brought on addiction, terrible attention spans, insomnia, and numerous mental health issues. It will be a worthwhile investment to learn how to free ourselves from these chains. | | | The Degradation of the Human Brain | |
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< | All of these technology companies are competing for our attention–for our willingness to stare aimlessly and repetitively at their digital products. James Williams, a former Googler and an expert on the digital world’s effects on the human brain, calls this the “attention economy.” When our attention and time create valuable data and advertising revenue, it becomes no surprise that the success of a digital company is measured on its addictiveness. This is no secret; just look at Nir Eyal’s national bestseller, Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products, which has been called a “must-read for everyone who cares about driving customer engagement.” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings also stated that in addition to Snapchat, he views sleep as one of his main competitors. This culture has changed the way we think and behave, and it calls for a hard look at how we can regain our freedom of attention.
Twitter and Instagram, however, are not harmful per se. Twitter offers access to independent journalism from any corner of the world, and Instagram allows us to connect with family and friends in a convenient manner. But these digital companies have plagued us with a desire to constantly be behind a screen, occupying ourselves with the petty distractions that steer us away from real-life interests like reading books, having uninterrupted conversations, or, frankly, doing anything else that requires a substantial commitment of attention. If we cannot pay attention, we cannot think and form ideas. We cannot move forward. | >
> | Digital companies compete for our attention–for our willingness to stare aimlessly and repetitively at their digital products. James Williams, a former Googler and an expert on the digital world’s effects on the human brain, calls this the “attention economy.” When our attention and time create valuable data and advertising revenue, it becomes no surprise that the success of a digital company is measured on its addictiveness. This is no secret; just look at Nir Eyal’s national bestseller, Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products, which has been called a “must-read for everyone who cares about driving customer engagement.” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings also stated that in addition to Snapchat, he views sleep as one of his main competitors. This culture has changed the way we think and behave: petty distractions steer us away from real-life interests. If we cannot pay attention, we cannot think and form ideas. We cannot move forward. | | | | |
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< | Change Needs to Come | >
> | Hoping for a Brighter Future | | | | |
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< | What We Can Do as Individuals | >
> | On a personal level, it is feasible to build healthy habits and set appropriate limitations on our technology use. Turning off notifications, for example, is a good place to start. My iPhone tells me that I received an average of 540 notifications per day last week, with a high of 1,000 on one day. Smartphones also allow us to place time limits on our screen time. Placing restrictions on this constant nagging will in turn limit the time we spend on our phones. I have also found that focusing on exercise and a healthier diet improve willpower, cognition, and general well-being, reducing the urge to constantly check my phone. | | | | |
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< | Reform is necessary on two fronts: on an individual basis and on a systemic basis. It is feasible to build healthy habits and set appropriate limitations on our technology use. Turning off notifications, for example, is a good place to start. My iPhone tells me that I received an average of 540 notifications per day last week, with a high of 1,000 on one day. Smartphones also allow us to place time limits on our screen time. Placing restrictions on this constant nagging will in turn limit the time we spend on our phones. I have also found that focusing on exercise and a healthier diet improve willpower, cognition, and general well-being, reducing the urge to constantly check my phone. Finally, increasing awareness of the bind that has constricted us helps us understand the ways in which our addictions are formed. Realizing that Instagram “likes” reel us in, or how algorithms on TikTok? show us content elicits strong emotional reactions, allows us to act consciously to avoid falling into these traps. This, of course, requires active steps and dedication to better understand these mechanisms. | >
> | One can also throw the whole smartphone away, but I do not see this as a realistic solution that most, let alone many, are willing to endorse. We must realize that most people simply do not care about their data collected or privacy invaded. Just as we are intellectually aware of the health risks that come with fast food, soda, and alcohol, many are aware of the dangers of technology companies misusing our data. But most people continue to ingest these harmful substances, which we can attribute to convenience, comfort, and enjoyment. Users, similarly, are willing to give up their data and privacy for convenience of communication, entertainment, and connection with friends and loved ones. Although it does not require a tremendous amount of technical sophistication to go under the radar (indeed, all that is required is a $100 chromebook and an even cheaper raspberry pi), it is unrealistic to expect mass rejection of social media and similar services. We must recognize the realities of human nature–the “network effect” in particular. The network effect refers to the phenomenon where the more people that adopt a good or service, the more valuable that good or service becomes. Modern media has already engulfed billions of people worldwide. Admittedly, the inverse of this must be true: the network effect would similarly apply if people would begin to reject these services. But, again, convenience and comfort are too attractive for most. And the average user is certainly not wiser than a Columbia Law School professor, especially not if that user was brought up with these technologies from a young age. | | | | |
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> | The problems still stand. Netflix tells us what to watch, Twitter tells us what to read, and Facebook may even tell us who to vote for. Soon, these companies may tell us how to talk or treat one another. Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, claims that Facebook and Amazon can know that an individual is gay long before it is obvious to himself. And if this data is to come before the Iranian government, which is notorious for its persecution of homosexuals, who is to blame? The individual or the neoliberal technology companies and their ruthless pursuits of profit? | | | | |
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< | Institutional Change
In an ideal world, we are perfect in setting boundaries, accessing our smartphones only for the pursuit of knowledge or for healthy connection. But the belief that every person suffering from a serious screen-time addiction can delete applications from their phone, or merely “leave their phone at home,” and be cured, is impractical. Both Williams and I agree that “individual abstinence” is not “sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues” that have led us to this point. Abstinence from smartphones and social media will not be adopted en masse, especially not by the generation that was born into this lifestyle. Thus, in addition to the steps we can take as individuals to curb our attention disorders, institutional reform is necessary. Meta, Apple, and Google must better look after the public interest. Or at least be forced to.
We must hold technology companies responsible. This requires greater public awareness of the attention economy and its consequences on the human mind. Pressuring these companies to address the harms they have created requires collective action, which is possible through widespread education. If Chevron has come to announce its commitment to clean energy, technology companies can come to announce their commitments to building healthier products. While widespread education can lead to systemic reform, so can regulation. Business models can be regulated through anti-surveillance statutes that can have the effect of limiting advertisement targeting. Users can also be notified of the time they spend on different applications. Tax law, too, may be useful–if technology companies can no longer deduct their advertising expenses, the business models of many of these companies must adapt to become profitable by other means. Antitrust and privacy regulation that has for so long threatened the Big Tech companies would also be an effective way to decrease the impact these companies have on our everyday lives. These methods can limit the exploitative practices that have led us to the pits of the attention economy. | >
> | I am regretfully cynical about a brighter future for now. Masses will continue to trade privacy for convenience, especially with the introduction of the metaverse, which will make virtual connection seem like reality. I do not, however, claim that another future is impossible. Decentralization of data provides an ideal solution. The harms of the attention economy will be much less pronounced when a small number of companies no longer store the majority amounts of personal data. Decentralization of currencies and finance are increasing in popularity, and we would likewise benefit from decentralizing data storage and social media in general. social.network, a decentralized social media platform, is paving the way. It uses open-source code, so that everybody has the ability to understand the mechanisms by which it operates. It offers “military-grade” encryption and security against data breaches. Most importantly, data is also decentralized; companies can no longer employ tactics to chip away at our attention spans and cognition. Similar platforms can replace Netflix, Snapchat, and even search engines. | | |
Conclusion | |
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< | The attention economy has been a disaster for the human race. Our lives are what we pay attention to, and, unfortunately, we no longer have complete control over where our attention is paid. Turning people into phone-addicted zombies may be unethical, but it is also highly profitable and legal. Reform must therefore come not only from ourselves and by limiting our addictions through awareness and healthier life decisions, but also through widespread education and regulation.
I don't know what the rhetoric gets you. You could put all the substantive content of the draft into four sentences or so: the rest is mere padding. Even your substantive conclusions are as vague as can be: "Antitrust and privacy regulation that has for so long threatened the Big Tech companies would also be an effective way to decrease the impact these companies have on our everyday lives. "
There is one specific claim in the draft: that life without smartphones and platform "social media" is unsustainable. This is asserted on the basis of one newspaper column, and is provably false. I live a pretty sophisticated technical life. I am constantly engaged with the Net; I do all of my teaching, most of my reading and almost all my writing using computers. Aside from the laptops, I build most of those computers from loose parts with my own hands. I install, configure, operate and maintain all the software in all those boxes, not one byte of which is proprietary. I am right this minute monitoring and administering sixteen servers and almost a dozen endpoint devices, none of which are, or ever will be, smartassphones. My devices are not distracting my attention or lowering my cognitive capacity. On the contrary, they are substantially increasing it. They make it possible for me to lead also a reasonably sophisticated intellectual and cultural life, walk a wide professional beat while running a multinational law practice, and in other ways think faster and perform better than I could ever possibly do with my grey matter alone.
When I was 16, in 1975, I said to my father, "I have two brains now,
a carbon brain and a silicon brain, and they behave differently." He
was more freaked out by that than by anything else I ever said to him,
but it was true. Decades of effort and skill went into shaping the
relationship between those two parts of my mind. But what took me all
that time can now be created for herself by any 12-year-old girl with
a $75 Raspberry Pi and a $100 Chromebook. Or by you.
The idea that this is "abstinence" needs to be reconsidered. I am not abstaining from bad tech, I am using good tech. I am not making a sacrifice; I am maximizing the value of my mental resources. The idea that being "born into" bad circumstances cannot be changed with the help of society is the despot's friend. You can find things to do with computers that you like better than Instagram and Twitter, indeed better than the whole snartassphone, engagement-maximizing platform-centric style of technology.
Perhaps it is obvious to you why my life cannot exist even if I think it does, or why FreedomBox isn't real even though I invented it, or at least why another future isn't possible even if we know how to build it and have scalable working prototypes. A clearer statement of the grounds for your conclusion, in touch with the actual technical details, would be a very great improvement in the draft.
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> | I fundamentally disagree with the idea that our society can easily drop “bad” technology like social media, Amazon, Netflix, and the like, and replace it with the “good” technologies of today. I do not, however, put my hands up and surrender. The world of web3 and decentralization is prospering, and we can hope that user-owned, decentralized networks and services will continue to gain wider approval. Another future is definitely possible, and decentralized platforms provide us with a scalable solution to the horrors of the attention economy. | | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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