Trying to dissociate technology from human beings is a somewhat complicated mission nowadays. There are specialists who say that we are already bionic beings and that the cell phone has become an extension of our arms – if it is not in our hand, it is always in an easy-to-reach place.
In addition to smartphones, we also have notebooks, TVs, tablets… Screens, screens and more screens.
The technological evolution experienced in recent years has resulted in a world connected like never before, with “shortened” distances and much greater access to information. However, specialists also point out a “negative” side of technological development.
For them, in Silicon Valley, the heart of the digital revolution, there are opposite extremes: poles of massive technology development and a population increasingly “disconnected” from real life.
Over there, there are already several former employees of the “Big Techs” who have decided to expose what they see as the “lack of regulation” and “lack of control” of an industry “that is designed, day by day, to dominate the attention and generate vices”.
In an interview with CNN, Tristan Harris, co-founder and director of the Center For Humane Technology and former Google Ethics Designer, explains that there are thousands of Big Tech engineers who will work every day with one goal in mind: trying to understand how to hold someone’s attention and keep them coming back.
He also said that the greatest and most effective strategies have a single very vulnerable target – human psychology. “Compulsiveness is designed. There are engineers whose only job is to figure out how to take the lion’s share of someone’s attention and keep it coming back the next day.”
“Two billion people use Facebook every day. Over a billion use YouTube. It’s a real danger, and we must make people aware of it,” added Harris.
real symptoms
Recent data indicate that loneliness rates have doubled in recent years in the United States, and simple experiments can indicate symptoms similar to those of abstinence when you are away from your cell phone – stress, sweat, among others.
Experts in the study of the human brain explain screen addiction as “frequent and rapid reward cycles” with the potential to alter the way we interact with others and the environment.
“The brain interprets each and every message, like and comment as a reward. Dopamine arises in the brain’s pleasure center and changes the way the mind works,” explains neurologist Adam Gazzaley.
“It’s like an infinite loop, and it’s really hard to resist. The line from distraction to addiction is very thin,” she added.
Addiction can lead to suicide
John Jones, a young American who practiced basketball in high school ended up abandoning his dreams for addiction – which almost led him to suicide. After being sexually abused in childhood, the boy told CNN that he developed a compulsion for screens and that “when he wasn’t online, he was sleeping”.
“Anything that wasn’t mandatory, I didn’t do. I didn’t go to classes and I stopped doing basketball. I spent many, many days without saying anything,” added the young man.
Between games, videos on YouTube and pornography, John definitely dropped out of school and contact with the real world, even with his own parents and family, which, little by little, led him to plan his own suicide.
After the attempt to take his own life, Jones entered a specific rehabilitation clinic for cases of technological compulsion. There, in conversation with CNN, the young man said he managed to recover some skills as simple as observing nature, committed himself to some “challenges” to resume life before addiction.
Among other tasks, John listed as “goals”: Canceling games, using a cell phone without internet access, dstop using alcohol, drugs and drinking coffee, fexercise and promote social contacts,
hopes and efforts
Even with scenarios that are often extreme, in which it is impossible to imagine a reversal of patterns, there are those who propose solutions to balance the use of technology with “offline” connections in real life.
In Waldorf schools, spread across the four corners of the world, the proposal is precisely to promote the education of children and young people without the support of any type of digital device. The institution defends that children learn “seeing, doinglistening, moving the body”, and that is why it is necessary to stimulate these activities.
Parents of the “little ones” in Silicon Valley have this perception and, therefore, look for solutions like those offered by Waldorf.
“We want to continue nurturing creativity because we feel it will prepare them for what’s to come as they get older. we don’t want them are machines. We want children to grow up to be good citizens of the world,” one of the students’ parents told CNN.
Watch the full episode on April 30 at 7:15 pm on CNN Brasil on TV, YouTube and Prime Video.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
