Time Well Spent

Time Well Spent is an organization which advocates that people be aware of how commercial interests design mobile devices to capture as much attention as possible without regard to how using these devices in this way may reduce the quality of life for individuals and society. [1]

Background

Former Google employee Tristan Harris founded the project to raise awareness about the intentional design to make consumer technology addictive.[2] James Williams co-founded the movement, and also dedicates his time to focusing on the ethics of technology design.[3] The two men founded the organization to spread awareness and talk about the aspects of technology that are often ignored, such as attention and distraction and their effects on the user.[3] After beginning to spread his ideas about the ethics of technological design through the community at Google, Harris adopted the title "product philosopher," where he researched how the company could incorporate ethical design.[4] Harris left his position at Google in December of 2015 to focus on the organization.[4]

Activities

The organization encourages designers and companies to respect users time and to create products which have as an end goal something other than maximizing use of products to sell advertising.[1][4] There are multiple ways that technology companies try to maximize the use of their products: by using an intermittent variable reward system, causing people to fear missing something important, increasing the desire for social approval, strengthening the need to reciprocate others' gestures, and interrupting individuals' daily activities to alert them of a notification.[5] Harris claims that technology parallels slot machines, in that both use intermittent variable rewards to increase addiction.[5] According to Harris, companies have a responsibility to reduce this effect, through techniques such as increasing the predictability of their designs and eliminating the intermittent variable reward system all together.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 O'Brien, Miles (30 January 2017). "Your phone is trying to control your life". PBS NewsHour. PBS. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  2. ↑ Harper, Paul (29 November 2016). "Ex-Google boss says you're ADDICTED to your smartphone and it's time to kick the habit". The Sun. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  3. 1 2 "#62 Time Well Spent with James Williams - Digital Mindfulness". Digital Mindfulness. 2016-12-30. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  4. 1 2 3 Bosker, Bianca (November 2016). "The Binge Breaker". The Atlantic. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  5. 1 2 Harris, Tristan (2016-05-27). "How Technology Hijacks People's Minds". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-04-10.

Further reading

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