Take it from the insiders: Silicon Valley is eating your soul | John Harris | Opinion |... - 0 views
www.theguardian.com/...ting-soul-google-facebook-tech
soul psychology tech addiction distraction misinformation conspiracy theory advertising technology
shared by Javier E on 07 Jan 18
- No Cached
-
The reality for millions of other people is a constant experience that all but buries the online world’s liberating possibilities in a mess of alerts, likes, messages, retweets and internet use so pathologically needy and frantic that it inevitably makes far too many people vulnerable to pernicious nonsense and real dangers.
-
if we’re not careful, we will soon be at risk of being locked into mindless behavioural loops, craving distraction even from other distractions.
- ...4 more annotations...
-
we ought to listen to Tristan Harris and his campaign. “Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts,” he recently told Wired magazine. “But we have three technology companies” – he meant Facebook, Google and Apple – “who have this system that frankly they don’t even have control over … Right now, 2 billion people’s minds are already jacked in to this automated system, and it’s steering people’s thoughts toward either personalised paid advertising or misinformation or conspiracy theories. And it’s all automated; the owners of the system can’t possibly monitor everything that’s going on, and they can’t control it.”
-
There is also a mounting understanding that one of the single most important aspects of modern parenting is to be all too aware of how much social media can mess with people’s minds, and to limit our children’s screen time.
-
a culture that actually embraces the idea of navigating the internet with a discriminating sensibility and an emphasis on basic moderation.
-
“This isn’t some kind of philosophical conversation. This is an urgent concern happening right now.” Amid an ocean of corporate sophistry and doublethink, those words have the distinct ring of truth.