Understanding your digital addiction

Source: City Press, 31/08/2018

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Are you tired of being phubbed?
“Phubbing” is the act of snubbing someone you are talking to, not
responding to a message on your cellphone or descending into a social
media black hole. Most of us are guilty of doing it and all of us have
been phubbed: by work colleagues, friends, spouses and �` if you’re a
parent �` especially your children.
French teachers have obviously had enough of being phubbed because in
July a bill was passed banning cellphones in all three education tiers
(primary, middle and high school), except for educational purposes.
Teachers have long been calling for this ban to curb growing
distraction in classrooms as well as to protect children from
inappropriate content such as porn, violence as well as cyberbullying.
Each school will be allowed to decide how to enforce the ban.
Some might think this an extreme measure but it is part of a renewed
surge to limit your screen time, led �` ironically �` by the very same
platforms that keep us glued to our black mirrors. Tech and social
media companies, it seems, have suddenly found a conscience, and we
have a young, pink-haired, nose-ringed, whistle-blower to thank for this.
Christopher Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica
employee-turned-whistle-blower exposed the fact that millions of
Facebook users’ data was used to manipulate voter sentiment in the
run-up to the American election, which saw Donald Trump voted in as
president.
In the subsequent fallout of the exposé, Jaron Lanier �` an American
computer philosophy writer and computer scientist �` remarked in a TED
Talks session that: “I can’t call these things social networks any
more, I call them behaviour modification empires.”
A chilling statement made even more so because it has made us realise
what we are really up against. For years we have come to understand
the concept of digital addiction, but these new insights have laid
bare how the addiction has been cleverly engineered.
Boundless Mind is a Silicon Valley start-up with a difference. Instead
of trying to build the next big thing that will consume us, they are a
group of trained neuroscientists trying to find ways to stem our �` now
entrenched �` digital addiction.
They explained to Time magazine that core to the problem is the unique
business model that is driven by “persuasive technology”: a potent
combination of tech and neuroscience that deliberately encourages
certain human behaviours (like keeping you scrolling mindlessly) while
discouraging others (like considered, nuanced ideas).
Ramsey Brown, one of the co-founders of Boundless Mind, elaborates on
how the business model then flows on from persuasive technology.
“The longer we are glued to an app �` known as eyeball time �` the more
money its creators make by selling our attention and access to our
personal data to advertisers and others.
“You and I are not customers of Facebook or Google; we are the product
being sold.”
He also provides an insight, which might be cold comfort for parents,
“Your kid is not weak-willed because he can’t get off his phone. Your
kid’s brain is being engineered to get him to stay on his phone.”
Parents might also be reassured by a recent Pew Research report that
reveals teenagers themselves are starting to feel the negative effects
of persuasive technology.
The survey was small �` 750 participants aged 13 to 17 years �` but
encouraging. Just over half the respondents (54%) thought they spend
too much time on their smartphones. At least 52% said they have taken
steps to ease up on mobile phone use and 57% have attempted to limit
their use of social media and video games.
These attempts should become easier now as tech companies scrabble for
ways and means to counter the digital addiction they spawned with new
tools to encourage “digital wellbeing”.
Facebook is trialling a new tool which will eventually be built into
its Android app. It will assist users to monitor the amount of time
they spend on the social media platform.
It aims to wean users off “mindless scrolling” by alerting users to
the number of minutes they have spent per day on the app (in the past
week) and will enable them to set self-imposed time limits, for which
they will receive notifications when the limit is reached.
Instagram, also owned by Facebook, is also trialling “Usage Insights”,
which also provides time-tracking tools, daily-limit reminders and
“usage insights” that will lay bare the full extent of your addiction.
Google is also joining the recovery crusade. In June they announced a
“digital wellbeing kit” that will come standard with its Pixel phones,
which also provides limitation tools and metrics that track your
social media usage.
These initiatives have in turn spawned a host of new mindful apps with
catchy names such as Offtime, Breakfree and Freedom, the irony of
which seems to be lost on the app developers.