{"id":287192,"date":"2018-02-09T12:04:15","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T18:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/?p=287192"},"modified":"2018-02-09T12:04:15","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T18:04:15","slug":"even-the-tech-elite-are-worrying-about-tech-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/?p=287192","title":{"rendered":"Even the Tech Elite Are Worrying About Tech Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 750px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-287192-1\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" loop autoplay preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2_addiction_h-1920w.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2_addiction_h-1920w.mp4\">https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2_addiction_h-1920w.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"byline\">By Farhad Manjoo<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">Your phone buzzes. A message, an Instagram post, a tweet \u2014 some bit of digital effluvia has come in, and it\u2019s right there, promising a brief but necessary hit of connection. All you have to do is look.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">But, just as an experiment, how long can you resist looking? A minute? Two? If you make it that long, how do you start to feel? Can you concentrate? Does your mind wander at what you\u2019re missing? And if you give in \u2014 as you surely will, as you probably do many times a day \u2014 how do you feel about yourself?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><strong>The issue of<\/strong> \u201ctech addiction\u201d has been a staple of tabloidy panics for as long as anyone can remember. Yet this ancient worry has now taken on a new and more righteous flavor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">What is interesting is who has been pushing the issue. Several former Facebook executives, the very people who set up the Like-based systems of digital addiction and manipulation that now rule much of online life, have begun to speak out in alarm about our slavishness to digital devices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">And their worries seem resonant. Now that we all have phones, and we\u2019re all looking at them all the time, how can we deny that they hold some otherworldly, possibly unhealthy bondage over our brains?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s a social-validation feedback loop,\u201d Sean Parker, Facebook\u2019s first president, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-2508036343.html\">told Axios in an interview<\/a> in November. He described Facebook and other social apps in terms once reserved for cigarettes \u2014 as products specifically engineered to exploit addiction pathways in human psychology. \u201cGod only knows what it\u2019s doing to our children\u2019s brains.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">Others have echoed his sentiment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">\u201cThe short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we\u2019ve created are destroying how society works,\u201d Chamath Palihapitiya, who once led Facebook\u2019s efforts at global growth and is now a venture capitalist, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2017\/12\/11\/16761016\/former-facebook-exec-ripping-apart-society\">told an audience at Stanford\u2019s Graduate School of Business<\/a> in December. The Guardian, meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2017\/oct\/05\/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia\">found a handful of former Facebookers<\/a> who said they would quit using social media for fear of being programmed by the social giant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/08\/technology\/apple-tech-children-jana-calstrs.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=business&amp;region=rank&amp;module=package&amp;version=highlights&amp;contentPlacement=1&amp;pgtype=sectionfront\">Even Wall Street has weighed in<\/a>, with two large investors asking Apple in January to study the health effects of its products and to make it easier for parents to limit their children\u2019s use of iPhones and iPads.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">Whether these Cassandras are correct is still a matter of scientific inquiry, though several studies suggest our phones do exert an addictive pull.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">A study published in June by researchers at the University of Texas asked subjects to take a series of tests that required full cognitive attention. The researchers found that people who had their smartphones nearby \u2014 even though they were on silent \u2014 performed significantly worse than those whose phones were in another room. In other words, if your phone is nearby, you can never really stop thinking about it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">The bigger problem is what to do about any of this. Few laws or regulations prevent apps from keeping us hooked, and the tech industry has no serious ethical prohibitions against tinkering with software to drive engagement; indeed, at many tech companies, keeping people glued to the screen is the whole ballgame.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\">Sure, it\u2019s nice that the guys who created this machine are suddenly aware of its dangers. But other than stop our phones entirely \u2014 or pursuing some self-directed regimen of conscientious withdrawal, good luck with that! \u2014 we might truly be hosed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2018\/02\/09\/technology\/the-addiction-wrought-by-techies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2018\/02\/09\/technology\/the-addiction-wrought-by-techies.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Farhad Manjoo Your phone buzzes. A message, an Instagram post, a tweet \u2014 some bit of digital effluvia has come in, and it\u2019s right there, promising a brief but necessary hit of connection. All you have to do is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,8,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edtech","category-education","category-social-networking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=287192"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287199,"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287192\/revisions\/287199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=287192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=287192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itblog.lcisd.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=287192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}