Addictive Technologies - Should They Be Controlled?

There are a lot of conversations around the topic of addictive technologies, such as gaming, social media, and the internet in general, and how designers create digital products that are purposefully habit-forming. It is not a secret that in the past twenty or more years, we've inherited generations that think and engage with the world differently than their predecessors. Is it necessarily worse? Depends.

Engaging games with storylines and multiple lifecycles of an avatar, for example, create a parallel reality where societies have their own rules, stakes, and friendships. Eventually, this reality may not only become important to a user, but sometimes even more substantial than the realities of a physical world where we have to navigate. Our brain's neural response does not really discriminate between a virtual and physical reality, and therefore lives the experience that is offered to it. After such an intense and engaging digital exposure that demands users' cognitive and emotional reserves, there is no time or energy left for real life, and although a user may not miss out the perceived important experience in the digital world, they end up missing out their physical life with its real circumstances and its own complex systems. 

When the time spent online is accumulated into a critical number of hours per day, per month, and per year, we can observe individuals who are somewhat disoriented in physical spaces and struggle to build a meaningful rapport with others. 

It has been determined that such behavioral patterns indicate a formed habit that has unnoticeably turned into addiction. And this type of addiction stands in line with other formally recognized behavioral addictions such as food, shopping, or thrill-seeking activities.

Every behavioral addiction has a remedy or common methods to moderate and control it. For some, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy may be a solution, for others it could be something else (ex., Motivational Enhancement Therapy or Exposure Therapy). 

The critical question, however, remains current: Do we need a system in place that will monitor the use of technology to ensure that it does not become compulsive? And if so, who will be responsible for it, companies that offer the platforms themselves, formal intermediaries, or will it be strictly the users' responsibility?

Texting about Delicate Matters and Losing Context In the Process

 Resorting to texting about topics that require constant emotional feedback is pure barbarity. It strips two people of their fundamental right to fully express their feelings and emotional states that are directly associated with a particular phrase or a message. Those assistive communication cues provide rich context to the conversation, and without them, the messages are interpreted poorly and sometimes entirely differently than what they meant to convey. 

For some reason, many users do not see or recognize the importance of such vital contexts and never offer to step up their game and meet in person to clarify the matter and talk over it candidly and attentively. As a result, friendships or romantic connections that would otherwise have high potential never develop further and end abruptly, without the chance for rehabilitation.

It feels like adults in their conscious years of existence may benefit from a 101 Digital Communication workshop where some fundamental elements of human interaction are articulated in plain English, repetitively and methodically. Maybe then, a lot of relationships that have been reduced to mediocre text interactions could be revitalized and given a fresh breeze of life.

Coding Bias and What It Can Do to Our Future

Ideally, the way programmers train the algorithms should make our lives significantly easier and more manageable, saving a lot of waiting and processing time across all systems and functions.

However, because machine learning mechanisms, especially their early forms, were designed by a homogeneous group of individuals with their own biases, the algorithms included flaws that would compute information at someone's disadvantage and undeservedly so.

Some of such examples were well demonstrated in the Coded Bias (2020) documentary:

Scenario 1, where citizens of Britain were monitored and screened without an explicit announcement. It was not mentioned anywhere within the jurisdiction and was done in a rather sneaky way. The algorithms with which the human profile was analyzed were severely biased towards individuals of a certain race and demographics. And the mere fact that such surveillance could take place in a civilized democratic society is alarming. What if it signifies the beginning of a totalitarian government form where human rights are systematically violated, and where prejudiced judgments are made swiftly, without a chance to appeal and rehabilitate one's good name and reputation?

Scenario 2: Candidates who applied to Amazon (tech?) jobs were filtered by gender, and the ones who got hired were predominantly male because of the way the AI tool was trained to discern information. For example, the Resumes where the word woman was present in any form or context were weeded out.  This also meant, however, that candidates with more gender neutral Resumes, where first names could belong to either gender, and where organizations' names did not mention the word woman, had the chance to be invited to an interview.

Both of these scenarios demonstrate dangerous trends, and we do need systems in place that will overcome such biases and ensure that they won't penetrate our social infrastructure so deeply that it would be nearly impossible to eradicate in the later stages.

Coding should replicate the real world with its sentiments and help meet its vital needs, and not copycat its existing problems into new algorithms.

 

Cyberbullying and Trolling

Although the internet can provide a safe space for those who want to express their ideas, feelings, and points of view without exposing their personal details, it can also become an outlet for the ones who play out their darkest traits uncontrollably and unpunishably. 

Trolling and cyberbullying have become so widespread that it created the need to come up with stricter laws and regulations through which victims of such attacks could prosecute their perpetrators.

In the early 2000s, I was subjected to trolling on a few separate occasions. Most of the time the attacks came from anonymous male figures who questioned, mocked, and insulted my intellectual abilities as a female. Some of their comments were so coarse, cynical, and vulgar that I’d feel as if the ground had been pulled from under my feet. I’d question my own existence and the degree of trust and openness with which I can perceive the world around me.

And because back then there weren’t any widely used mechanisms to detect and prosecute anonymous bullies/trolls, the only possible way to control the situation was through banning a specific account through which a person executed such activities. However, this measure wasn’t always effective since a bully could create multiple accounts through which he continued to troll a person or multiple individuals. This way a moderator of an assumed public space would be overwhelmed by the never-ending virtual battle.

Regardless of the covered timeframe, whether it is the early 2000s or our days, the bullying that takes place on public forums or social media accounts, mirrors the same type of bullying that happens in real life, with the only difference that its virtual version is magnified in number of active participants as well as witnesses, and may therefore have a stronger effect on a victim.

Through trial and error, and in response to countless cases of cyberbullying with tragic outcomes, new mechanisms have emerged on technical and legal planes to mitigate its impact.

These are great advancements that we can appreciate on one hand, but on the other: the fact that cyberbullying continues to emerge in its new forms and harm younger users, means that the remedies should be found within the boundaries of one’s own family and physical community, where young minds are shaped with a certain belief system, mentality, and countless biases embedded in their intimate and social circles.