Surviving a Hostile Digital World
Diego Cantor, Ph.D.
Entrepreneur. Post-Doc in AI. PhD in Biomedical Engineering. Innovation ?? · Healthcare ?? · Startups ?? · Toronto ????
We are bombarded with disruptive messages all the time. Those olden times when one could take a break, walking out of the house to check the mailbox with the expectation of hearing the latest news from Tia Emma are lost. Nowadays, it seems that all we get is buckets of spam, and Tia Emma's messages are probably somewhere under the ever-growing pile of virtual, non-sensical garbage.
But, there was something special about taking a pause and going to the mailbox. This was sometimes an opportunity to take old chum Charlie for an extra walk, noticing that the leaves were turning and the wind was also bringing news of winter.
The world changed. Somedays we check our phones before we even get out of bed. No time to go out and experience what the new day brings. Especially if you, like me, are working remotely. We constantly hear email beeps and Slack notifications or see the little red bubbles on the phone icons telling us that we have not caught up, that we are running behind. If such an incredible amount of attention-grabbing items could manifest physically, we would be horrified to realize how fit we are as a contestant for a TV hoarding show.
But the disruption of the natural order goes beyond work. Back in the day when I was a Facebook user, I remember that news feeds were simple: I would get updates from my friends, and the few subscriptions that I was interested in. Simple. Now, it seems like all the social platforms have followed the heuristic of force-feeding you promoted and quite frankly useless posts. It's getting harder and harder just to get the updates that you want. What is worse is that the algorithms ruling your feed have changed very rapidly over the last few years, almost without you noticing it. This is leading to longer scrolling sessions just to get to things that are relevant to you. In the physical world, this would be equivalent to dumping truckloads of pamphlets with the latest holiday deals from every single latitude and trying to walk in through a sea of paper in a narrow entrance hallway.
I am not very happy about it and have a bone to pick with the way such apps work. The attention economy as it is called seems to be an evolution of the cable TV model where you pay for content but you only get 22 minutes of the hour: the rest is advertisement. The Internet was supposed to be better. With options, personalization, and cookies, advertisers were supposed to know what they wanted and make sure that the proper content reached an eager audience. However, the reality is very far from this ideal.
Dear social platform, I do not want to engage with boiler manufacturing in Vietnam. Thanks!
Some companies propose that we take control of our digital consumerism. For example, Apple has tools to reduce screen time or disable notifications, while Facebook lets you select the type of ads that you do not want to see. However notice that this does not mean that you will see fewer ads, at all. It only means the unwanted ads will be replaced by better ads according to your preference. Also, good luck if you find where these settings are, it took me an internet search and 20 minutes. These systems are designed to be hostile.
If we could materialize how the user experience for these systems feels in the real world, it would be equivalent to those benches at parks or airports where you can sit but cannot lie down.
This movement is known as hostile architecture and it is characterized by forcing people to use public space in a certain way or to not use it at all. Similar examples appear around parks, avenues, and subway stations around the world.
Characteristics of hostile systems
1. Opting out of advertising is tedious: you get all the advertisements from all the vendors. If you are not interested you have to opt out, manually, one-by-one. It is the same with cookies: you have to opt out instead of opting in.
2. Creating content is easy but deleting content is tedious: have you ever tried to delete pictures on Facebook or posts on Instagram in bulk? What about deleting likes? Mechanisms to manage your digital footprint are scarce or non-existent.
3. The user has no control over news feed algorithms: the order of your updates is determined by advertisers, not by your interests. After all, algorithms are designed to optimize engagement and monetization instead of usefulness or relevance for the user. And that ugly word: feed.
As you can see these are some examples of how systems are designed to be used in a single unidirectional way. But what can we do in this hostile digital world? How can we take back control? Here are some of the things I am currently trying.
Workarounds for hostile systems
Setting an opt-in policy for notifications
I got rid of all the angry red bubbles in my phone that showed me the number of messages and emails I never replied to. I also eliminated all pop-ups, banners, dings, and alerts. Now I have very few notifications enabled. Only for urgent things. For example, I get notifications from the airline when I am travelling and the gate for my flight has changed, and I don't have any red bubbles for emails. This way, I check my email when I want, without stress, and I make it part of my daily routine.
Planning time for email and social network interactions
I make a point to reply to emails and messages within 24 hours. If anything is urgent, people can text me or call me. I plan my email interactions instead of reacting to messages. I used to believe that instantaneous reply was the best way to go but experience has shown me that taking time helps me set the right tone and articulate better the message that I want to share.
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Managing intrusive sponsored content
Unfortunately, I haven't found an online solution yet for eliminating sponsored intrusive content or configuring a news feed. In principle, this should be doable by identifying such content in the HTML page and creating a user script to remove it. Perhaps there is already an application to do this.
When it comes to video content, an application that is giving me good results is called SmartTube which is available for Android TV. This is an excellent example of an opt-in mechanism for video advertisements. The app uses SponsorBlock technology which identifies the type of content in a video like this:
For each of these categories, SmartTube offers these options:
In addition, there are sensible user-friendly, pre-configured settings. For example, sponsor blocks are disabled. SponsorBlock is also available as a browser plugin.
The same type of controls should be available on other platforms, especially if you are a paid user.
Scheduling time for at least one walk and one coffee with a friend per week
These are vital spaces to disconnect from the computer and the phone. Even more so in a remote work environment. #mentalhealth
The next level: creating tech that works for people
I believe that today, there is a world of opportunity for companies working on developing attention-preserving, time-saving technologies. An example of this trend is GABB a company based in Utah that develops phones with no internet, social media, or games and whose main audience is parents. Another example is Techless a company in Plano, Texas that has an interesting proposal for a stress-free minimalistic phone called the Wisephone II.
In the interim, my struggle continues. I believe that reducing the digital footprint is also an eco-friendly initiative worth aiming toward. I believe that getting rid of the indiscriminate attention-grabbing tech could create mental space for ideas and creativity. In the real world, this would be similar to those advertisement-free spaces in Tokyo imagined by Nicolas Damiens or similar to what cities like S?o Paulo and others have implemented to eliminate visual contamination.
In the wise words of Marie Kondo, this healthier, uncluttered digital world could help us spark joy ?
I hope you have enjoyed this installment of Digital Reflections!
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