Do we like the Internet too much?

Last week I was part of an event where Damian Bradfield, one of the founders of We-Transfer, made an impassioned plea to rethink our dependency on the Internet. The event coincided with the publication of his new book The Trust Manifesto: What you Need to do to Create a Better Internet. He opened the event with this question: what social media app could you not live without?

It provoked some soul searching in the audience about how technology is shaping our lives. For me, working from London but with friends and colleagues in San Francisco and around the world, WhatsApp has become indispensable. I’m part of multiple groups focused around my family, projects that I am working on and most importantly who is going to walk our dog. It’s the first thing I check when I wake up and the last thing I scan at night.

Do I like the Internet too much? Probably yes. I don’t like the growing feeling that I am missing out on something, which I can trace back to constantly checking my messages. It definitely makes me less present to my life.

I’m not alone, according to self-reports of adults around the world. In the United Kingdom more than 50 per cent of adults admit that connected devices interrupt face-to-face conversations with friends and family 43 per cent consider that they spend too much time online. (A decade of Digital Dependency. Ofcom. 2018) In Singapore, 6 out of 10 adults said that they were addicted to social networking and the internet. (AIA Healthy Living Index Survey. 2016).

Social media sites and games have become extremely successful at getting our attention. Auto-play makes it all too easy to lose yourself in binge viewing on Netflix or YouTube. Snapchat streaks tap into the adolescent’s longing for popularity and insecurity about being left out. A timer emoji appears next to their friend’s name when the streak is about to run out – a warning to use it or lose it.

In this fast moving age of information, a handful of tech giants command the majority of our attention – Facebook, Youtube, Netflix and Instagram. And they do it well. The secret of the stickiness of these sites is often credited to one man, B.J. Fogg, a behavioral scientist at Stanford University, who founded the field of persuasive design. Known as the “millionaire maker”, his thinking shaped the Silicon Valley technology and games that in turn have come to shape our behavior.

Richard Freed, psychologist and author of Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age,
explains it well. Speaking in an interview with Chavie Leber he reveals the secret sauce behind persuasive design.

“The formula is that in order to have behavioral change, you need motivation, ability, and triggers. In the case of social media, the motivation is people’s cravings for social connection; it can also be the fear of social rejection. For video games, it’s the desire to gain skills and accomplishments. Ability basically means making sure that the product is remarkably easy to use. Finally, you add triggers, which keeps people coming back. So those videos you can’t look away from, the rewards you get inside an app when you use it longer, or the hidden treasure boxes in games once you reach a certain level — these are all triggers, put there as part of the persuasive design.”

For most adults, persuasive design results in their wondering how they managed to spend so much time online and whether it was worth it. For teenagers the effect is more impactful. Video games tap into the teen’s competitive drive to win, and with each level of mastery and reward it is easy to be pulled in to increasing amounts of time online. Social media can feel as if it will make or break the adolescent seeking to find belonging and a positive reflection in the eyes of their peers.

For young children the Internet offers a place to find out about new things, to be creative and to play. However excessive time online may be damaging to their development. In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) published new Health Guidelines for children under five. Their advice was to cut screen time to an hour or less a day (none in the first year of life) and give your kid more opportunities for active play. The biggest problem that mobile devices pose young children is that they displace other experiences that they need, such as interactive parenting and physical activity.

On October 12, 2019, people around the world will turn off their social media in observation of Empty Day and instead, as their website suggests, “connect, reconnect, and maybe even go outside ... we ‘go quietly’ for a day.” I’m joining them. It’s not that I don’t love my smartphone. It’s that I’m needing to hit the reset button and get some screen-free time back in my life.