I recently read an article about a famous children’s book author being critical of children watching screens too much. His position was that the children are reflecting the world we’ve created for them. The fix is to read to them more. Likely he meant read more paper books to children. While I agree with this, especially being a librarian, I think the solution is not as easy as he makes it seem.
When considering the state we’re in, most of us with a unhealthy addiction to our screens, it’s not so easy to disengage. Many services and communications are also only possible with our smartphones. I went to a new exercise studio this past weekend and the only way to register and pay for classes is through an app! Without a phone, there would be no way to participate. Even with my gym, I need the app on my phone to scan in at the front desk.
Technology companies also pay lots of money in research to keep us engaged and addicted to our phones. I’ve heard descriptions of these technologies as being as addictive as slot machines. Our attention, along with our data, is the most valuable commodity to these companies. With social media sites, everything about how they design them is geared towards capturing and keeping our attention. Some of the strategies include features such as a continuous scroll. This allows us to keep going and going, further and further down the rabbit hole.
Another feature is when videos auto-play continuously with barely a gap in between. The videos don’t stop at the end providing us with a moment of pause, and maybe reflection, to consciously decide if we want to play another video, or maybe go do something else. It also takes away our choice of what video we might want to play next. The next video plays automatically. It’s something determined by an algorithm to give us more of the same, based on past choices and perceived preferences.
Back to the children author’s remark, it’s not that easy for us to fight against the effort and manipulations of these powerful companies. These companies hire the best researchers and throw obscene amounts of money in a calculated effort to hijack our attention. Everything about it creates a dependency on these technologies, one that’s not so easy to prevent children from interacting with.