Life: Designed

It’s easy to blame yourself, but it’s not all your fault. 

It’s been a week after my digital detox, and I’m honestly scared to check my screentime. I know I’ve fallen back into the same cycle, endlessly scrolling on Instagram. Trust me, I have the hour time limit on it like I said I would, but for some reason it’s not stopping me at the hour (I really have to look into that). 

Did I mess up the settings of the screen time limit so it doesn’t kick me out? Yes, it seems so. Is it completely my fault that I’ve fallen back into the endless cycle of scrolling on my phone? No. 

What they’ll tell you

They want you to think it’s all your fault that you keep getting stuck, scrolling for hours on them. That way, it’s not their fault. They won’t have to change anything about themselves if everything going wrong is only a you problem. 

Israeli Tech Designer Nir Eyal, while he doesn’t blame you for being addicted to the technology because you didn’t create it, does believe that “individual changes should be the first line of defense.” 

Nir Eyal recommends making small changes to your daily life to help combat technology addiction. He recommends changing your notification settings and having a detailed plan on how to spend your time that you actually stick to. He recommends deleting “all the apps you can from your phone.” 

He suggests a strict life, limiting the technology we have. He says it’s simple. Just the click of a button and some planning, and all our problems can go away just like that. 

Eyal says, “We have to adapt, that’s our only option.” 

What if it wasn’t?

The Reality

The reality is that this is exactly what tech companies are banking on. That you’ll blame yourself and keep them out of it. 

“They can no longer deny the crisis, so they are doing something else: subtly urging us to see it as an individual problem that has to be solved with greater self-restraint on my part and yours, not theirs”

Johann Hari, Stolen Focus.

Tech companies give you the tools to say no with screen time, do not disturb, and the ability to toggle on and off notifications as you wish. They provide you with the tools and say it’s your fault if you’re not using them. 

In reality, they’ve crafted something highly addictive, something designed to keep you sucked in. So, no, it’s not just as easy as clicking a button. It’s something called cruel optimism, a concept developed by management professor Ronald Purser at San Francisco State University. 

“It sounds optimistic, because you are telling them that the problem can be solved,” but “the solution you are offering is so limited, and so blind to the deeper causes, that for most people, it will fail.” 

Ronald Purser

It makes you feel like you have an out, you have something you can do about it, but the problem is so big that these little solutions couldn’t possibly be enough. 

Make it Happy

I’ve always thought that we’re stuck this way, with constant notifications and constant distractions. I always thought it was too late to go back. 

What if I told you it wasn’t? What if I told you tech companies could change today and help us be happier? 

They won’t do that, though, because they’re not in the business of happiness. Our happiness doesn’t make them money. 

They could send out notifications in batches, one or a few times a day, instead of sending you a ping for every single thing that happens. 

They could get rid of the infinite scroll, so “you have to make a conscious decision to carry on scrolling,” says Aza Raskin, inventor of the infinite scroll and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. 

Social Media could ask if intermittently or after a set amount of time if you want to keep going, to give yourself a moment to really think about what you want to do. 

These companies can make the switch, but they won’t because they would lose money. Keeping you drawn in makes them money; the more you stay locked into a screen, the more they profit. 

How to Make a Change

These companies don’t need to get their money from keeping you engaged at all times. One example suggested by Stolen Focus is to put these companies in the hands of the people, let there be public ownership like the BBC or PBS. 

While this isn’t necessarily the only way to go about it, the point is that we have options. 

Johann Hari explains that social media and tech in general can be changed, “so that, instead of trashing your attention span and our societies, they would be designed to heal them.” 

Nothing will happen if we just say nothing. The ability to change is in our hands. 

This is such a big issue right in front of our faces, yet it’s so hard to see. If we spread awareness about what these companies are doing to profit off of us and that they could stop any moment if they wanted to, we could make a change. We need to get people to care. 

If we speak up, we can change the way the world uses technology. 

We can put these companies in the business of happiness.