{"id":1149,"date":"2019-09-22T19:24:58","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T01:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2019-09-22T19:25:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T01:25:05","slug":"are-we-really-in-control-technology-and-its-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/2019\/09\/22\/are-we-really-in-control-technology-and-its-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We Really In Control? Technology and Its Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I listened to Tristan Harris\u2019s Ted Talk, How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day, <\/em>I was reminded of an assignment that I give to my middle school students. I require them to read articles covering both sides of an argument in order to help them answer the question \u201cIs technology helping or hurting us?\u201d\u00a0 I agree with Harris\u2019s point that tech companies are manipulating us towards things that are not necessarily the best for us, but that this same power could be used to encourage us in more healthy and positive pursuits. One of the articles that I require my students to read is, Is Technology Killing Our Friendships? <\/em>by Lauren Tarshis.\u00a0 Tarshis\u2019 article suggests that technology is \u201ckilling\u201d the friendships of teens by giving them the illusion that they have true friendships just because they have 500 friends on Facebook.\u00a0 The reality is that they actually never reach a deep level of friendship with any of their \u201cfriends\u201d outside of liking the persona that each person has created online. Yet, they have been convinced that “friended” equals friendship. Harris suggests that social media could be used to \u201c..empower us to live out the timeline that we want.\u201d\u00a0 He suggests that if we were given the opportunity to instead of posting a controversial question online, we could use that same platform to plan a dinner party where the conversations can be had in person, building those relationships in person while furthering the same controversial discussion, we would be creating a much more healthy timeline.\u00a0 Tarshis\u2019s article makes the same point. Human contact is key to our continued social growth.\u00a0\u00a0
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Harris explains that these tech companies have divisions of people who\u2019s only focus is to manipulate our actions online.\u00a0 They have created the ability to \u201c… precisely target a lie only to those people who would be more susceptible to it.\u201d To me, this is terrifying. I agree with Harris when he suggests that \u201cThe only form of ethical persuasion exists\u00a0 when the goals of the persuader are aligned with the goals of the persuedee.\u201d This sounds wonderful and very idealistic. As much as this would be what is best for the masses, what is the likelihood of these corporations giving up their power over us? \u00a0 As I look at my students faced with the choice \u201cIs technology helping or hurting?\u201d and I am surprised. There is always a significant number of students when confronted with the data, who actually argue that technology is hurting us. This gives me hope for our future around Harris\u2019s position on ethics. I don\u2019t believe that the internet and social media are inherently evil.\u00a0 They are benign on their own, but it makes me wonder what it would take to convince these tech companies to use their \u201cpower\u201d for our good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As I listened to Tristan Harris\u2019s Ted Talk, How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day, I was reminded of an assignment that I give to my middle school students. I require them to read articles covering both sides of an argument in order to help them answer the question \u201cIs … Continue reading “Are We Really In Control? Technology and Its Ethics”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}