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Thoughts About Simple Technology
Embracing the simple things
I wonder how healthy technology’s obsession with increasing viewership and usership is. Social media companies want to hold our attention as long as possible and at all costs. Websites pump out clickable and sensational content to lure eyeballs to their corner of the web. Everything on the internet wants to draw us in because that’s how most internet-driven businesses make money. Everything runs on viewership, usage, and length of time spent consuming content.
But, my question is, do we ever stop to think whether any of this is good for us?
One of the ideas I’ve always ruminated on is this idea:
Maybe instead of our goal being to increase usership, shouldn’t our aim as technologists be to make technology that enables us to use technology less?
If we know that overuse of technology is bad for us, shouldn’t our goal be to make technology less addictive, less controlling of our lives, and less of a hindrance to health?
Shouldn’t we build technology that gives us more control over how we spend our time rather than trap us into an addictive spiral of dopamine dependence?
Shouldn’t we build technology that makes us happier and healthier even if “makes us happier and healthier” really means “makes…