regrets from the “once hopeful”
Unforeseen consequences stand in the way of all those who think they see clearly the direction in which a new technology will take us. Not even those who invent a technology can be assumed to be reliable prophets…
Everyone is distracted, All of the time -
Justin Rosenstein (inventor of the like button, Co-founder of one project and Asana)
A strange series of events played out over the middle years of social media and digital technology’s most recent life cycle. From 2016 to 2020, an upheaval was occurring within the playground of tech giants. Each month saw a wunderkind or luminary disavow their inventions and recant their testimonies about digital technology’s goodness…
social media companies are taking behavioral cocaine and sprinkling it over your interface. that’s the thing that keeps you coming back -
Aza Raskin (Inventor of infinite scroll, Co-Founder of The center for humane technology)
We began to see technologists “parent their devices” and (for those who were parents themselves) opt-out of giving access to their own children. News of caution and best practices emerged from the Valley. Those who had seen behind the curtain had something to say…
I’m here today because I believe Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy - Frances Haugen (Former Facebook designer, analyst, and whistleblower: “The Facebook files”)
It’s easy to see why so many innovators and trailblazers in the field began to leave and speak out. Our society was devastated by the transformation of thought, feeling, and action into a digital, hyper-individualized medium. Those creators of our new world had no ability to understand how their tools would shape our lives.
Most people think they spend 2 hours a day on their phone. When we look at the data...it's 4.5 hours — it shows that there's a disconnect between reality and your awareness -
Tim Kendall (former president of pinterest, creator of screen-time reduction app)
Whenever we enter a moment like ours, the first question that should arise is not “am I being effected by this shift,” but “how am I being effected by this shift?” This disconnect between what we see and feel tells a deeper story. We are no longer untethered simply from each other. We are isolated from our very selves without those institutions and principal methods of self-learning that make up a culture.
If you want to know what’s really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty -
Jaron Lanier (Father of Virtual Reality, author of Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now )
Inventors have in mind a use for their technology and a fulfillment of its potential. This explains the phenomenon of whistle-blowing in Big Tech. So many creators of our digital ecosystem’s most pervasive designs foresaw what the most rich, flourishing, and empowering versions of their tools could be. When runaway technologies destroyed the foundation of our democracies, usurped the history of progress, and meddled with the psychology of billions, once hopeful inventors gaped in dismay at what they had wrought.
Technology steers what 2 billion people are thinking and believing every day. It's possibly the largest source of influence over 2 billion people's thoughts that has ever been created -
Tristan harris (Former design ethicist at Google, Co-Founder of The center for humane technology)
While their designs continue to propagate, their regrets have propelled movements. No one can predict where a technology will end up and what aspects of society it will impact. What can be done is examination. We would be wise to begin a careful interrogation of the places in our lives where tech negatively impacts our well-being. Take an inventory of what digital content you permit everyday and account for its byproducts. You may discover that the hope you once felt about a platform or device’s influence has soured and turned to regret in light of the reality it has shaped.
We are surrounded by the wondrous effects of machines and are encouraged to ignore the ideas embedded in them… we become blind to the ideological meaning of our technologies.
- Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
