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Does anyone have ideas as to how one could get involved in combatting these effects? I mean as a cause to fight for, where one could make an impact on others' (

Does anyone have ideas as to how one could get involved in combatting these effects? I mean as a cause to fight for, where one could make an impact on others' (particularly the younger gen) lives. I'm aware of the organization Time Well Spent led by Tristan Harris, and have signed up to volunteer (but have not heard back). In the meantime, what can I do as an individual? This is something I've grown to really care about, but am not sure what to do on an individual level besides my own damage-mitigation tactics (deleting FB, etc.)

jf 9y ago
I've been wondering the same thing. At a high level, I've been thinking about making myself a "firewall for attention". Here's what I've done so far: Talk openly with friends and family about how much better my life is without Facebook. Aggressively remove all advertising from my life (run ad blockers everywhere, pay to remove ads on Kindle, replace Roku with Apple TV, etc). Only read news that I pay for (I view this as paying for curation, in addition to the writing itself). Stop carrying an iPhone and use an Apple Watch with LTE instead.
wincy 9y ago
I think Lenore Skenazy [0] is forming a national group dedicated to facilitating unsupervised play for children, which if you want your kids to not have phones would certainly help them. I've heard anecdotally that one of the reasons phones are appealing is it's a way to break free of being constantly monitored by modern day helicopter parents. Another program I've heard of but don't know much about is wait until 8th [1], which is people promising to not give their children a smartphone until at the earliest 8th grade. [0] http://www.freerangekids.com/ http://www.freerangekids.com/ [1] https://www.waituntil8th.org/ https://www.waituntil8th.org/
en-us 9y ago
You could check out secure-scuttlebutt (scuttlebutt.nz). It's an open source and decentralized social media platform. I hope that the decentralization will remove the advertising profit incentive and then we can actually design apps to improve people's lives instead of maximizing screen time. But who knows. Maybe this is human nature and we're fucked regardless of the underlying technology. Either way, the best thing to do for the younger gen is to spend time with them and teach them about this stuff so that they can make informed decisions as they grow up. I don't think my generation had the luxury of making an informed decision because it was all so new and the people in SV did not have the moral compass required to weild this new power benevolently.

jf 9y ago

I've been wondering the same thing. At a high level, I've been thinking about making myself a "firewall for attention". Here's what I've done so far: Talk openly with friends and family about how much better my life is without Facebook. Aggressively remove all advertising from my life (run ad blockers everywhere, pay to remove ads on Kindle, replace Roku with Apple TV, etc). Only read news that I pay for (I view this as paying for curation, in addition to the writing itself). Stop carrying an iPhone and use an Apple Watch with LTE instead.

wincy 9y ago

I think Lenore Skenazy [0] is forming a national group dedicated to facilitating unsupervised play for children, which if you want your kids to not have phones would certainly help them. I've heard anecdotally that one of the reasons phones are appealing is it's a way to break free of being constantly monitored by modern day helicopter parents. Another program I've heard of but don't know much about is wait until 8th [1], which is people promising to not give their children a smartphone until at the earliest 8th grade. [0] http://www.freerangekids.com/ http://www.freerangekids.com/ [1] https://www.waituntil8th.org/ https://www.waituntil8th.org/

en-us 9y ago

You could check out secure-scuttlebutt (scuttlebutt.nz). It's an open source and decentralized social media platform. I hope that the decentralization will remove the advertising profit incentive and then we can actually design apps to improve people's lives instead of maximizing screen time. But who knows. Maybe this is human nature and we're fucked regardless of the underlying technology. Either way, the best thing to do for the younger gen is to spend time with them and teach them about this stuff so that they can make informed decisions as they grow up. I don't think my generation had the luxury of making an informed decision because it was all so new and the people in SV did not have the moral compass required to weild this new power benevolently.