The World We've Created
Image by redgreystock on Freepik
For many of us, our devices feel like an overbearing voice in our lives, constantly nagging us to come back online. We often have the innate desire to spend our entire days getting quick dopamine rushes from TikToks or some funny posts Instagram. What we don't realize is why we do this, and how companies have been able to design according to our nature.
For years, tech companies have been trying to find ways to finally become profitable, with many companies that we know today running purely on fumes before finding a concrete business model that suits them. It wasn't until the past decade where we started to see this introduction into a heavily advertiser centric world, where these companies start to do anything to build a profile on you and your actions. This is what makes the tech industry so incredibly profitable, and in an effort to not lose their edge, they rapidly innovate to find new ways to profit off of the human psyche.
““The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions; and god-like technology.””
In an effort to fight against this hostile type of design, organizations like the Center for Humane Technology have provided resources and information to help people understand the tactics these corporations employ to feed into your desires. For most tech companies, like Facebook, Google, and TikTok, they are all trying to personalize your content so you spend as much time on their app as possible. They apply this and numerous other tactics in an effort to grow their user base and time within the app, all the while neglecting the negative consequences of their products.
To stop this negative growth, the Center for Humane Technology has provided a framework to change the system from the inside out. They layout leverage points that can be employed by companies to provide products that aren't hostile, and negatively impact their user's lives. They provide examples and show why "pushes for immediate design tweaks at major platforms must be paired with longer-term systemic reform, like changing business models".