Time well wasted

Former Design Ethicist at Google Tristan Harris, gives a very informative speech on Ted Talk about the way tech companies manipulate tricks to capture the attention of their consumers. As tech companies such as; Google, Facebook, and Snapchat create new apps and programming, they must also continue trying to find innovative ways to keep the consumers attention. It is apparently not enough to simply market their new app or program by advertising it alone. These tech companies try to find ways to manipulate their customers into spending as much time as possible using their cyber product. YouTube, for example, in their efforts of keeping people logged in longer to their site, came up with the idea of auto playing the next video that was in line after the video you chose to watch ended. This was a rather smart marketing ploy to keep people watching more videos and staying logged in to YouTube even longer than was initially intended. Low and behold, after YouTube started the auto play, other sites such as Facebook followed suit. The aforementioned trick of keeping people logged on to apps or sites, is just one of many ways tech companies try to manipulate the consumer. Manipulating the consumer is also used by the majority of games people play on their smartphones or PC’s. These gaming apps keep people logging in several times throughout the day by giving timed bonuses. Meaning, if you are playing a slot machine app, for example, every few hours you can collect bonus chips if you open the app. Snapchat also developed a way to manipulate their users by creating Snap streak. Snap streak is a record of how many days in a row you can have a Snapchat conversation with the same person. So, now, many users of Snapchat will send meaningless and empty messages to one another, just to keep their streak going in this “semi-contest.” The reason I call it a semi-contest, is because there are no prizes, prestige, or Snapchat awards that you will receive. This was a marketing ploy targeted mainly at teenagers, to keep them logging in daily and using Snapchat. Even if that means sending a completely meaningless message of a wall, the ground, the sky, etc. just to keep their streak going. I believe these tech companies are doing nothing more than hurting their consumers by manipulating the time people spend on their sites. I am going to use myself as an example of this. With all these new and amazing apps that seem to pop up every day, I find myself spending more and more time online or on my phone utilizing these apps. I HAVE to collect my bonuses on the slot machine app that I use. I HAVE to keep in touch on Facebook or I feel like I might miss something important. Even as I am writing this blog, I have collected bonuses on my game twice, and peeked at Facebook once. It seems that my attention gets pulled elsewhere, even when I am trying to focus on something that should take precedence, such as my homework. The amount of time spent on these apps could very well be spent doing something considerably more productive. On the bright side, I know longer watch porn; So, that has freed up a nice chunk of time that I can spend doing something more valuable… Who am I kidding? The time I freed up will probably be spent playing games on my phone. 😊