While listening to Tristan Harris’ TED Talk “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day” I felt disconnected from his speech as if he wasn’t speaking to me. So I tried to understand or imagine who his audience is and read the transcript while listening to it a second time. Then, I reviewed his organization’s web site, Center for Humane Technology.
My impression is he isn’t speaking to the public but, instead, to other people in the business of designing web-based applications. His organization is built around and promotes the idea that those designers should use a human-centered design model when creating new applications, or they should redesign those already in the public sphere. All I could think of while learning more is Tristan Harris has a utopian dream, and I am hard-pressed to believe any of the big tech companies will take him seriously. Granted, Facebook/Instagram, Apple, Alphabet, and Comcast have launched features for users to view how they spend their time on their devices.
What he misses in this speech is what actually drives tech companies…advertising dollars. Harris briefly mentions advertising but quickly moves on. Is that because he knows advertising is the only way to avoid making all of these platforms subscription-based? Is he unwilling to tackle advertising, consumerism, and capitalism as ills of the world?
Simone Stolzoff puts it best when explaining the “time well spent” movement has become a meme. “When companies like Facebook check the time-well-spent box with a few cosmetic design changes, they get credit for putting a bandaid on the symptom without addressing the disease.” (Quartz)
Like YouTube, the TED web site offers videos of similar context in a column to the right of the video currently being viewed. One of those caught my eye, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “How craving attention makes you less creative.” This speech spoke to me more directly.
The premise of his speech centers around something I related to, personal responsibility. He acknowledges how easy it is to become addicted to social media, and to the detriment that causes.
Gordon-Levitt describes the difference and importance of getting attention versus paying attention. Social media’s seemingly primary purpose is getting attention directed to you. Do you sometimes feel, like me, a little jealous of others who get more attention to their posts? I have commented to my partner my observation that more of his Facebook friends Like or Comment on his posts than my friends do on mine, even when we are both tagged in the post. Also, do you find yourself checking back frequently to see how many and which of your friends have reacted or commented?
He concludes his speech with a more constructive idea. Rather than viewing everyone else on social media as competitors, we should see them as collaborators. Imagine the power we can have if we are paying attention to others and they are paying attention to us. We can then begin collaborating, and the effect of paying attention becomes more potent than the feeling that comes with getting attention.
What are your thoughts? Feel free to share them with us.