It’s been 33 years since Steve Jobs talked about turning the personal computer into a bike for the mind. In those years, the advent of the smartphone and the massive adoption of social media have turned those bikes into runaway trains. Americans spend more than four hours a day on their cell phones, and More than half say they are addicted to their device. In May 2023, the surgeon general he gave a warning About the serious effects of social networks on the mental health of young people.
Most of us probably don’t need such statistics to identify the phenomenon: Our habits reveal the dire state of digital well-being today. There is a mismatch between human attention and intent when engaging with screens.
However, there is reason for optimism. Inappropriate behavior is not a new problem. As the urban planner and philosopher Paul Virilio once said: “When we invented the ship, we invented the shipwreck.” And we have an unfair advantage: the digital nature of the problem.
The universal challenge of maladaptive behavior
Misbehavior (when our actions deviate from our best interests) is a recurring challenge in many domains. From the obesity epidemic fueled by the massive introduction of processed foods to the habitual overspending fueled by easy access to credit, history is replete with examples of such maladjustments. However, US cigarette smoking trends provide a promising example of progress on societal maladjustment. In recent decades, the number of smokers in the US has increased It dropped from 40% to 12%.
The downward pressure on this chart was driven by several joint efforts:
- Public awareness and education: of the Chief Surgeon 1964 report it raised widespread awareness of the health risks of smoking, and inspired extensive public health campaigns.
- Policy interventions: The entire legislation, including a ban on smoking in public places and strict advertising restrictions, significantly reduced smoking habits.
- Cultural changes: Over time, smoking has become less socially acceptable, aided by changing media portrayals and public opinion.
- Technological advances: The introduction of nicotine replacement therapy and digital tools to help quit played a key role in helping smokers overcome their addiction.
These same forces are entering the fight for digital well-being. Increased awareness is generating greater research attention, which is deepening our collective understanding of the subject. The time has come for a parallel solution: technology that’s as good at protecting our attention as social media platforms are at exploiting it.
Our greatest advantage in combating digital addiction
Imagine if you wrote code that would make the donut heavier and heavier by the day. This is what we can do with devices. It is entirely possible that responsible device practices are codified in the same environment as “addiction” itself.
We can deploy environmental change at scale at no marginal cost to anyone who wants to change their behavior. This is an unfair advantage that smoking cessation or health food campaigns have never had.
This is even more important as the next generation of digital interfaces – Large Language Models, virtual reality and Brain-Computer Interfaces – promise to bring the digital world closer than ever with the promise of reducing the latency of human-to-human communication. and devices. Our impulse to access the Internet is now within reach of the pocket, in the future, it will be just a thought away.
As the space between stimulus and response shrinks, the potential for platforms to exploit human attention will continue unless we increase our ability to articulate and establish our attentional preferences in these environments.
To do this effectively we will focus on four main foundations:
- High-tech solutions for a high-tech problem: The best of our current technology should be harnessed as a force to protect attention rather than exploit it.
- Allow moderation rather than abstinence: An all-out war to remove technology from our lives is unnecessary and unhelpful. We can develop integrated methods to moderate engagement that maintain the tool while removing distraction.
- Benefit-based content consumption: Up-skill is a different practice of digital participation than scrolling doom. We track the difference and let it inform ongoing protocols.
- Alternative Behaviors (“Better Yes”): at the same time that you are drawn to running, we remind you of the most important things in life; like hiking, deep conversations, and pursuing your life’s work.
As the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl said, “between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.’ It’s time for technologists to help humanity reclaim that space.
Royce Branning is the company’s co-founder and CEO Clean space.
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A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on January 9, 2024.
