The social dilemma

How do big tech companies compete for our attention? Why do they go to great lengths to keep us addicted? And should we be concerned?

 The fact is that these tech tools have created wonderful things in the world. These platforms have reunited lost family members, they have found organ donors, solved criminal activities and so much more, but what about the flip side of that coin. What have we lost in the process?

Some of these issues range from the mental health issues surrounding the use of social media, fake news becoming more advanced and threatening societies around the world (look at the Russian cyberattacks on the 2017 and 2020 US elections), we have gone from the information age to the disinformation age, and this has been threatening democracies everywhere. These tools are starting to erode the social fabric of how society works.

The new agenda for technology has a major problem, “moral ethics”. I mean we are so addicted to our phones or emails or social media, our apps and yet the tech companies are not working to make it less addictive. We should be asking ourselves, is this normal or have we fallen under a spell. Everybody should know about this, not only the tech companies. Why should a few tech engineers make decisions that would have an impact on two billion people? Two billion people are not robots, two billion people will have thoughts that they didn’t intend to have, because some designer at Google or Facebook said this is how notifications work on the screen that you wake up to in the morning. This has the ability to affect our kids, affect the people around us, affect our decisions be it true or fake and we have to do something about it.

These big tech companies have few employees with ginormous computers raking in money. To monetize profits, these companies no longer sell products, they sell people, they sell their users, they sell you and me, we are the product of the future. Because we don’t pay for the products that we use on Google or Facebook, advertisers pay for the products we use, advertisers are the customers, and we are the things being sold. “If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.” Facebook and Google are not just simple search engines or places to socialize, they are competing for your attention. Their business model is to keep people engaged on the screen for as long as possible – and they have been winning more of our attention than our families, our kids, our jobs and even our minds. We are not in control, they are. If you don’t believe me, just look at the people around you on the bus or train or street with their heads down in their smart phones. What about you, what is the first thing you do before going to bed and first thing you do when you wake up? I bet you pick up your phone first before kissing your spouse or kids?

Google, or Facebook or Twitter should have the moral responsibility for solving this problem.

It’s going to take a miracle to change these habits and that miracle is of course collective will. It’s going to take a long time for us to figure it all out because not everybody recognizes that this is a problem. I think one of the big failures in technology today is a real failure of leadership.  By having these conversations, we can start to change the tide and maybe – just maybe – persuade big tech companies to transform or reform the way they collect data and use people’s private information.  Almost all the critics agree you should start with turning off notifications on your phone and reducing the number of apps you already have. Never accept a video recommended on YouTube, always choose, that’s another way to fight.

Before you share anything on social media you should fact check. You vote with your clicks, so before you click remember the financial incentive to keep you clicking away. A lot of these tech engineers admit they don’t give devices to their own children so why should you?

Subrina Hall Azih is a Trinidadian Educator residing in New York.