SaltWire E-Edition

Be aware that smartphones are master manipulators

Don’t let the cheery icons fool you

PAM FRAMPTON pam.frampton@saltwire.com @pam_frampton Pam Frampton is a columnist with SaltWire Network, who lives in St. John’s, N.L.

I saw a business card the other day that listed someone’s fax number and was catapulted 30 years back in time.

It’s amazing how many trailblazing technologies (like the catapult) have become obsolete, even within our own lifetimes.

Technologies, ostensibly, are developed to make our lives easier, save us time and labour, elevate quality and consistency, and improve communication.

But are we wagging technology's tail or is the technology tail wagging us?

If you’ve got a smartphone, it is surely the latter.

SPIES BY YOUR BEDSIDE

What the New York Times said of millions of Americans in its in-depth 2019 series, “One Nation, Tracked,” is true of millions of Canadians as well. They “find themselves carrying spies in their pockets during the day and leaving them beside their beds at night …”

I wrote about how smartphones are watching and tracking us in a column back then; about how we allow ourselves to be watched and tracked.

My concern has only grown. I’ve noticed, in my own smartphone use since then, how slick and tricky cellphones are, and how they work hand in glove with manipulative social media to keep us coming back for more screen time, sometimes oblivious to life unfolding around us.

I saw a toddler in a big box store the other day. The weight of his diaper made him a little unsteady on his feet, but he was using his thumbs with the dexterity of a teenager, swiping and scrolling on a smartphone as he tottered through the store like a horse with blinders on, focused only on the animated images and colourful icons on the screen.

I despair for the generation of potential eyewitnesses we’re raising.

(Officer: “You were in the area at the time. Did you see the person driving the backhoe that was carrying an ATM?”

Smartphone user: “Uh, what? Sorry, I think I was playing Candy Crush Saga at the time.”)

TOO MUCH INFLUENCE?

Joking aside, just how much influence is your smartphone exerting? A great deal.

As Tristan Harris, cofounder and executive director of the Center for Humane Technology, told the journal Thought Economics in 2020, “The technologies of social media and the smartphone have allowed the influence and manipulation of human biases and weaknesses . ... The prevalent business models in technology are entirely based on manipulating human weaknesses through advertising and engagement, through harvesting attention and surveillance capitalism.”

When I was working fulltime at a hectic job, my desktop computer was more tool, less diversion.

Now that I’m spending more time on my phone, I have become hypervigilant about its beeps and pings and flashes.

Its nudges and prompts. So-and-so sent you a text. Here are the latest news headlines.

Don’t forget your twofactor authentication.

Enter your username, your password, your one-time code.

Track your package delivery. Track your snowplow.

Take this short survey and tell us how well we served you today.

Take a photo of your document and upload it.

You have new notifications on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

Enter your location code and credit card information to use the parking meter.

Want to know when is your bus coming? Sign up for text alerts.

Will you accept cookies? Do you agree to these terms and conditions?

It’s exhausting.

So many of our movements have become predicated on our being tethered to a phone that those who can’t afford one, or who choose not to have one, are made to feel left behind.

SOCIAL PRESSURES

Meanwhile, the societal pressures and the constant poking and prodding of social media are damaging, too.

Studies have found links between social media use and depression, anxiety, and loneliness, particularly among teens. It can also corrode attention spans and encourage narcissism or self-loathing.

With every smartphone interaction, we are being groomed to provide more and more information, to relinquish further scraps of our privacy; a few more pieces of our soul.

Someday, perhaps, we will only exist as virtual beings within our phones (as long as they are kept battery-charged, with the sound turned up.)

So that one day in the future, someone might say your name and hear a faint purring vibration in reply.

OPINION

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2023-03-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281616719599136

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