The digital disruption of our everyday life, in particular, our social relationships and interaction among each other is not really a spotlight topic. We talk about the future of jobs, autonomous driving, the Internet of Things and since the 2016 elections we at least talk about the impact of digitalizing and democratizing our media. This article takes a closer look at social media and what it can do and does to our life, especially to that of our kids and teenagers. We need to be more conscious of this, and make sure the social media industry gets regulated where there is a need for regulation. Read for yourself:
“I’ll admit I was a slow-follower when the iPhone launched ten years ago. I was suspicious of Apple’s intent — I was not fan of its closed, vertically integrated model — and the market’s infatuation with apps felt like a fad that would ultimately fade. When I finally did get an iPhone, I felt complicit in the what amounted to internet climate change: slowly but surely, our new addictions were bound to swamp all that we had worked so hard to build on the open web. As Tristan Harris and many others have pointed out, the economic incentives driving our mobile landscape (in short: advertising) are based fundamentally on the science of addiction, and addicted we certainly are…”