The news in the last several weeks has been full of reports about former Facebook, Apple, and Google employees expressing concerns about the dangers of smart phones and social media—in particular, to children and young people—but in general, for everyone.
Here are just a few statements high profile technology executives and investors have made in recent months:
From Chamath Palihapitiya, former VP of user growth, Facebook: “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works…No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.” According to a piece in The Verge, he goes on to say his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.”
From early Facebook investor (and Napster co-founder) Sean Parker: “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
From an open letter to Apple’s Board of Directions, January 6 from Apple investors: “…even the original designers of the iPhone user interface and Apple’s current chief design officer have publicly worried about the iPhone’s potential for overuse and there is no good reason why you should not address this issue proactively.”
From Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google: “The largest supercomputers in the world are inside of two companies — Google and Facebook — and where are we pointing them? We’re pointing them at people’s brains, at children.”
In contrast to the confessional comments by Palihapitiya and Parker, the Apple investors’ open letter and Tristan Harris propose robust solutions. The open letter challenges Apple to tackle designing a more nuanced approach for parents to scaffold their childrens’ iPhone usage in contrast to the current binary all-access or nothing approach (I encourage you to read the short letter.)
Tristan Harris and team propose humane design as the solution. Harris has been speaking out for several years now about the responsibility designers have to the people using their products. In his 2016 TED Talk, Tristan asks the question “What does the future of technology look like when you’re designing for the deepest human values?” This past week, Tristan joined forces with Common Sense Media to launch the Center for Humane Technology. Former Executive Director of Mindful Schools, Randy Fernando, is a co-founder with Tristan along with several other prominent tech innovators. (Advisors include Jon Kabat-Zinn.)
So how does humane design begin? Here’s how the new website describes it:
Humane Design starts by understanding our most vulnerable human instincts so we can design compassionately to protect them from being abused:
- How are we vulnerable to getting overwhelmed, stressed or outraged?
- How are we vulnerable to micro-targeted persuasion? (e.g. messages that use our personality and traits against us?)
- How are we vulnerable to the expectation of being available 24/7 to each other?
The open letter and the new Center for Humane Technology deliver significant and specific calls to tech companies to acknowledge the negative social consequences of design decisions they’ve made and to step up and make changes.
Meanwhile, how can we support a young person currently using a smart phone, or a tween who may be getting a smart phone soon? Get comfortable talking about your relationship with technology—the positives and the negatives. If you haven’t already, begin a weekly family mindful tech talk. The question Harris poses in his TED Talk is an excellent catalyst for a family tech talk.
What does the future of technology look like when you’re designing for the deepest human values?
Depending on the ages of your kids, you might use this question to lead into a discussion about your family’s values, your personal values, your vulnerabilities with technology, and the role of brain chemistry in how we use technology. If you’re parenting a young child, talk with your family members and friends. Be patient. It takes time to create the rhythm and trust required for successful family (and friend) tech talks. Put your focus on listening with an open mind to hear your children and parenting partners in new ways. Begin and repeat. Amazing things can happen over time.
Here’s an invitation…Write me (to respond, use the contact form in the About section) to let me know what works, what falls flat in your family tech talks. Are you having trouble getting started? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
What I’m listening to: Manoush Zomorodi talking with Anya Kamenetz. If you’ve been reading my Mindful Digital Life posts for a while, you know I love Manoush’s program, Note to Self. In this conversation, Manoush talks with Anya about Anya’s new book, The Art of Screen Time. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the “screen time” metaphor, it’s a really down-to-earth conversation. Manoush and Anya are both parents. I love Manoush’s description of narrative parenting that she’s starting to practice—talking through with her kids what she’s doing on her devices. Give it a listen. It’s a 26 minute podcast.
What I’m reading: I’m on Chapter 3 of An Oasis in Time: How a Day of Rest Can Save Your Life, by Marilyn Paul, PhD. The author offers strategies for how to create a weekly retreat (anything from one hour to whole day) from our usual constant action and time pressure. And yes, it does involve disconnecting from technology once a week, connecting with friends and family, plus a focus on emotions such as joy and awe. “If we understand traditional Sabbath wisdom, we can transform it into a contemporary practice that is shaped less by rules and more by the values we cherish and want to enact in our daily and weekly lives…Unlike our forebears, we have to wrest Sabbath time out of the claws of our packed calendars.” Marilyn reminds us that the root meaning of Sabbath and Shabbat is “to stop, cease.” She shares her own journey of creating a weekly oasis in time with her husband and teenage son.