A very well written and considered article by someone who has not only been immersed in the culture that fuels our digital addiction, but presents a well reasoned argument on how we can or should deal with it.
In short, tech companies intentionally design apps, interfaces, etc to play on our psychological vulnerabilities desire for enjoyment/ distraction. Tristan proposes we actually use ethics in the development of digital things, to stop the gamification of our lives with online gewgaws. Certainly the company I work for presents our products without misleading embellishment or inducements to buy – it’s not just ethical, it prevents your customers from coming back to bite you through social media if you burn them.
As an aside, at the moment Facebook just came out with Workplace by Facebook , so you can no longer just use FB to escape work.
I feel for him, I truly do. However given we’re not even over religion yet, I’m not sure we’ll be enough over the competitiveness of capitalism in my lifetime to stop this being par for the course.
Tristan Harris on combating digital addiction @ The Atlantic