You win some, you lose some.
“Steve Jobs, who was CEO of Apple for many years, told reporters that his kids don’t use iPads and that ‘We limit how much technology our kids use at home.’” (Ledger of Harms)
The important question is, how much are we losing? If even Steve Jobs restricts and limits his child’s screen usage, how big of a problem is this?
The Foundations of the Humane Tech Course taught me about the trade-offs of technology and how we as a society are relatively losing more than gaining when it comes to the technological advances in society. The trade-offs of technology are due to the high profit which results in very fast development and a sort of creation due to un-regulation. With the evolution of AI and other similar technologies like meta-human, for example, there are several problems with technology taking the role of a human. As technology like this advances, it only becomes more powerful and widely accessible for people to use. The use of human life tech and misinformation can be quite dangerous. In other words this rapid development is a very high risk.
“As technology develops, it becomes more powerful, cheaper, and more widely accessible. This is often highly beneficial, but it also means we are rapidly disseminating technology with dangerous, exponentially advancing applications” (Foundations Ch.2)
Now, if we consider the whole technological system at large and how it will generally impact many different things, we need to note the interdependencies and what areas will be highly affected (Foundations). As we know, most technology persuades people to have higher engagement, such as social media. Social media thrives on several negative aspects including fake news, attention overload, our shortening attention spans, problematic influencers and a sense of addiction to phones / screens.
I looked into The Ledger of Harms and found the statistics and overall research to quite scary. Although it was quite interesting to look through, it made me quite concerned. The overwhelming negative impact technology has on humans is terrifying. As the “race of human attention” in technology rises, our attention spans are getting shorter and our amount of time on these devices is getting larger. A statistic showed that children ages 2 to 4 spent an average amount of 58 minutes on a mobile device each day. Since they are so young and their brains are still developing this has an overall negative impact on their growth. In a different way, adults are switching tasks digitally and in person with an average of every 19 seconds.
“Maximize engagement by hijacking human nature” (Foundations Ch.5)
With mental illness on the rise, one of the main causes is social media especially when it comes to anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Additionally there is an increase of oppression and sexual assault online.
Now all of this seems very daunting to fix. Some may say, we need to get rid of this technology as a whole. But that would be impossible. If anything, technology is just going to keep increasing at a rapid speed. However if we get systemic and industry changes as well as design improvements, there is hope. It’s important that we work toward these screens to not be so addicting and rather focus on our well-being.
“Ledger of Harms.” Ledger of Harms, June 2021, ledger.humanetech.com/.
“Foundations of Humane Technology Course – Center for Humane Technology.” Course – Center for Humane Technology, http://www.humanetech.com/course. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024.
Hey, I’m Ashley!
I am a graphic & interactive designer passionate about creating purposeful, fun, and engaging design. Whether it’s a brand identity, a responsive website, or a social media campaign, I love connecting ideas with strategy to make work that’s not only beautiful, but effective.
