——– Ali, Flavia, Sharon, and Theo
To wrap up this semester’s discussions on various aspects of communication technologies, we decided to focus on some of the key psychological impacts that the current, prominent communication platforms have had on its users. We chose this topic because we wanted to delve into the ubiquitous nature of technology and its implications on our individual behaviour, our emotional well-being, and on our relationships with others and with our devices/tech.
We started by considering the two related experiences of depression and isolation that have grown in prevalence and severity, concurrently with the increased usage of social media. We explored some of the factors and evidence behind the negative effects of communication platforms on our emotional well-being, which include FOMO (fear of missing out), the act of social comparison, and the resulting cycles of envy and jealousy that feed into depression. We discussed the results of some studies that showed the correlation between popular sites (including Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, and Snapchat) and their effects on users’ lifestyles, allowing time for the class to brainstorm some reasons for these effects.
We also highlighted some projects that have attempted to address these issues by offering companionship and support to users. For comparison, we introduced the class to online “therapists” like Eliza and Woebot, and designated some time for everyone to experience interacting with these chatbots. It was interesting to hear people’s feedback on these systems – most responses highlighted the limitations and lack of effectiveness of these platforms. Beyond these online platforms, we also showed a clip from the movie Her, along with an advertisement for Vector – a virtual assistant robot designed to maximize the user’s relationship and feelings towards it. Are AI powered technologies a solution, then, to the increasing amounts of social isolation that individuals are experiencing these days?
Theo’s part of the presentation continued with the overarching theme of social interactions and the negative effects of technology on them. We delved into the effects of communication technologies such as social media, particularly the ability to send notifications and always be accessible via mobile platforms, on the ability to concentrate and carry out tasks effectively. We presented the finding of Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab on the subject, discussing key aspects such as limits to attention, interruptions, sense of urgency, and attention allocation to highlight the challenges that modern communication technologies pose on multitasking abilities and effective human interaction. Then he transitioned into some methods to overcome these social distractions and examples of technologies developed to help bring attention to this issue, if not help combat it. Last but not least, the philosophy of digital minimalism was presented as a social tendency that people are adopting to reorganize their digital lives.
The purpose of this section was to bring attention to a subconscious yet omnipresent effect of the rapid development of communication technologies and the movement to being always online and always reachable. This furthers the discussions we have had in class about the mediums of communication and their implications in interpersonal interactions.
After touching on depression, isolation, and distraction, we decided to close our presentation on the main cause that drives the previous three behaviors: addiction. Were it not for our addictive attitude towards these mobile devices, we would not have experienced such behavioral change. For this part of the presentation, we decided to focus more on UX design features across different platforms. We focused on explaining how these target our human psychology in a way that makes us keep our hands on the phone and our eyes on the screen. This section had a strong focus on Tristan Harris’s perspective. As a google design ethicist, he is considered an expert on the subject and has written multiple essays and given talks on design for addiction. After looking at some of his videos and texts, we decided to focus on three key aspects of design addiction: variable ratio schedule, the bottomless vortex, and warm colors – showcasing how they stimulate different part of our brains based on gambling patterns, intuitive cues versus visual cues, and color dominance. In order to look for ways forward and focusing on what we can do as humans to combat these default triggers, we also proposed three alternative actions to limit the power of these features.
In order to expand on that aspect and at the same time wrap up with all topics as a cohesive whole, we showcased Humanetech, Harris’s awareness platform that talks about different ways in which technology has altered our behavior – from our relationships, our self-confidence, and our addiction. We wrap up by stating how this form of media is different from the TV, the radio, the computer, etc. in order to strain the importance of the awareness of its impacts. With this, we then focus on more tactics to mitigate social platform impact – ranging from specifically daily actions to potential apps we could use to limit us.
Resources:
– https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/opinion/sunday/a-focus-on-distraction.html
– http://www.hcii.cmu.edu/
– https://www.forestapp.cc/en/
– https://medium.com/swlh/digital-minimalism-how-to-simplify-your-online-life-76b54838a877
– https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069841&mbid=synd_msnhealth#s3
– https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/instagram-ranked-worst-for-young-people-s-mental-health.html
– https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(17)30016-8/fulltext
– https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinkers-with-users-emotions-in-news-feed-experiment-stirring-outcry.html
– http://manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3/
– https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/learning/does-technology-make-us-more-alone.html
– https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2012/05/24/text-or-talk-is-technology-making-you-lonely/#728f96592a7b
– https://woebot.io/?fbclid=IwAR2i27cgnr54A7YoXSIT9wfCvmhdRXhl0BAz7-Zk-L6tdf-z1558yVK1c24
– http://www.tristanharris.com/
– https://www.rbcs.org.uk/headmasters-desk/revealed-the-addiction-tricks-of-social-media/
– https://www.businessinsider.com/how-app-developers-keep-us-addicted-to-our-smartphones-2018-1#twitter-uses-a-psychological-trick-to-lure-you-in-the-same-one-used-in-slot-machines-3
– https://www.vox.com/2018/2/27/17053758/phone-addictive-design-google-apple
– http://humanetech.com/