Design Renaissance – To Be or Not to Be (9/20/19)
As we continue our conversation about the use of social media for social change, we come to design thinker, Tristan Harris, whose tagline states that he “helps the technology industry more consciously and ethically shape the human spirit and human potential.” In his TedTalk, “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day” (April 2017), Harris describes how YouTube, Facebook, SnapChat, and just about every other social media platform are in a race for our attention and time. Drawn in by Snapstreaks, Facebook notifications, and YouTube and Netflix autoplays, we hand over our time unwillingly, never to be seen again. Harris poses a sobering question: “At the end of our lives, all we have is our attention and our time. What will be time well spent for ours?”
Fortunately, Harris doesn’t leave us there. Once he has explained the way big tech companies use “big data” to direct our minds and our moments, he turns the idea on its head, with his inspiration for a design renaissance. What does this mean and how do we get there? Admittedly, this is a hard concept to grasp…and even harder to imagine coming to fruition. For somehow these tech companies, particularly Apple and Google which design the operating systems and software on our phones, must make an about-face and use their big data in a more altruistic fashion.
Ay, there’s the rub. Rather than steering our attention toward matters that make them money, data controllers working behind the curtain of social media sites and entertainment streamers will literally change their tune and ask us how we want to spend our time. Based upon our answers, Harris suggests, personalized data would be employed to our benefit and direct us in paths that can make our requests come true. In an interview with Wired online (7/26/17), Harris presents it this way: “Let’s do a massive find-and-replace from the manipulative timeline to the timeline we would’ve wanted to have happened.” So what do I say in response? I say “Let’s!” – indeed, “Let’s do it!” But wait. Who is us exactly who are going to initiate this design renaissance?
With the best of intentions, I pursued Harris’s Time Well Spent movement and investigated his commendable non-profit, Center for Humane Technology, whose mission is to “reverse ‘human downgrading’ and re-align technology with humanity.” However, although I was impressed by his three years as a Google Design Ethicist studying ways that “technology should “ethically” steer the thoughts and actions of billions of people from screens” (tristanharris.com), I failed to see how and when Google, or any other tech company or SNS (social networking site), had made efforts toward such a realignment, or any indication that they would ever be incentivized to do so.
In both his TedTalk and the Wired interview, Harris presents the idea of Facebook replacing the Comment button with a Let’s Meet button. Rather than ranting and raving inside a comment box, site visitors could invite their Facebook friends to meet for dinner to discuss their views in a more ‘humane’ setting. But Wired’s Nick Thompson asked the obvious question, would people communicating with their friends on Facebook really rather get together for dinner? If you were to ask me, I would say, not really. And even if so, I don’t know that such a button would help me feel empowered over my attention and time. Or, maybe Harris is talking about taking baby steps toward a better humanity. But I think the tech giants are not very interested in coming down to his, or my level.
Harris goes on to suggest that a major next step is to force greater business accountability in the internet economy, especially when it comes to advertising. I couldn’t agree more. But then Harris goes on to say that the real problem is not the advertising itself, since it is often targeted exactly to our needs and wants, but rather it is the “attention economy” that is the problem – the advertising model that wants users to keep their time and attention on their platform as long as possible. Certainly, I cannot argue with the latter, but I would argue that the former, the advertising itself, has its own inherent evil in the online realm.
Possibly I am too much a cynic – but, if so, I am a reluctant one. I do want to believe. I hope the brilliance of Tristan Harris will be enough to influence the powers that be to join together to launch his design renaissance. In the meantime, I will continue to propose that those of us with some media literacy help other users better navigate their online experience, rather than expecting that the internet economy will transform itself anytime soon.
Generational Movement From Slacktivism to Activism (9/14/19)
There are not many issues of more concern to me and thousands in Colorado than gun violence. Not just gun violence; but mass shootings. Not just anywhere; but in our schools. In the midst of these events, social media is used as an avenue for expressing views about gun ownership and use. Some use SNS (social networking sites) to argue for stricter gun control laws, while others promote looser gun carry regulations within their own interpretations of Second Amendment rights.
For the latter, Patrick Parsons, Georgia Gun Owners Executive Director, is a good example. In the KUNC.org report about how Activists Are Using Social Media to Redefine the Second Amendment, Parsons describes how he makes a Facebook post every day on a Facebook page with over 400,000 followers in order to publicize his version of a gun rights bills that eliminates permit requirements in Georgia and makes a weapons license optional. Even more, a lobbying app on his phone shows over 6,000 messages (as of March 2019) sent to Georgia lawmakers supporting a ‘constitutional carry’ bill. Whether or not you are a proponent of Parson’s cause, he is certainly taking advantage of several of Jennifer James’s 8 Tips for Effectively Using Social Media for Social Change, including her recommendations to: (1) Gather advocates, (4) Create sustained conversations, and (6) Identify your core demographic. While Georgia Gun Owners members cover a range of ages, Parsons as a Millennial knows that his social presence and the lobbying app are crucial to his cause, and Tom Spengler would agree that “the ability to offer mobile and online apps to citizens is vital to engaging this generation” (Civic Engagement: Why Millennials Have Outpaced Seniors).
But Parsons is not the only young activist capitalizing on social media. Even as ‘far back’ as 2013, the Pew Research Center on Internet & Technology in their Civic Engagement in the Digital Age report stated that 63% of SNS users had “gotten involved” with fellow citizens in a meeting or group to solve some identified problem in their community – the national average is only 48%. It is noteworthy that the PRC identified this as “involvement” in social activism rather than simply awareness, or what some have called slacktivism: mere Facebook posts (or the like) of support for social change without the political activism to back it up. On the other hand, Jonathan Moyer felt that from 2012-2016 slacktivism was alive and well (Political Activism on Social Media Has Grown Some Teeth), even amidst mass shootings and terrorist attacks. But late 2016 saw a major shift, which some say was initiated by the Trump campaign and presidency, and followed up by such events as the Women’s March and the March for Science. By early 2017, Moyer argued that the era of slacktivism had ended, because “people are now faced with real, personal, unavoidable issues that drive them into public spaces to attempt to break down oppressive structures [that] has resulted in a sort of national renaissance of political activism.” The study conducted by Howard, Savage, Saviaga, Toxtli, and Monroy-Hernandez in late 2016, Social Media, Civic Engagement, and the Slacktivism Hypothesis: Lesson’s from Mexico’s “El Bronco”, came up with similar results. Their research suggested that in recent years, when political leaders and citizen share a social media platform such as Facebook, there is a higher likelihood of positive civic “engagement” that results, an activism that goes beyond SNS slacktivism.
And the trend continues, evident in the now-adulting Generation Z who are carrying the activism banner even higher. January 2019 brought yet another Pew Research Center study, this one in Social & Demographic Trends, where it states that Generation Z Looks a Lot Like Millennials on Key Social and Political Issues. Furthermore, Gen Z continues to use social media to spread the word, not just to voice support online for a cause, but to invite its fellow members to act, to actually show up at a rally or event.
Which brings us back to gun violence in our Colorado schools. After the most recent mass shooting at The STEM School in Highlands Ranch (May 7, 2019), students used social media to publicize a gun control rally, but then returned to the same platform to decry what they considered a politicization of their gathering. The event began as somewhat of a vigil in honor of Kendrick Castillo, but soon transformed into a stage for various politicians to voice their political agendas about restrictive gun laws. Even though many of the students would consider themselves gun control proponents, still hundreds of them marched out of the event within its first 30 minutes, exclaiming that their good intent had been turned into a “political stunt.” Soon social media was aflame with support for the students’ counter-protest, but many SNS posts were by gun rights activists that identified the student walk-out as in their support. Social media became a platform for who’s on whose side, rather than communicating care and support for victims of yet another traumatic event in a Colorado community. Danah Boyd had expressed a related concern in her lecture, “What World Are We Building?” (Oct 20, 2015): “I watched activists leverage technology to connect people in unprecedented ways while marketers used the same tools to manipulate people” – and the same can be said about those using SNS for political aims. This brings us to an important moment of reflection about social media for social justice and change. Social media as a platform for ‘spreading the word’ can be used altruistically or destructively, depending upon the word being spread. We must keep a watchful eye and a discerning mind in our SNS communities and do what we can to help our younger generations navigate online so they can truly change their world. As often as needed, we must quote Boyd in saying that “we need those who are thinking about social justice to understand technology and those who understand technology to commit to social justice.”
Related article: Should People Have To Pass A Social Media Check To Get A Gun? (CBS Denver, Dec 4, 2018).