It’s rare to meet someone who doesn’t have their smartphone practically glued to their fingertips.
This addiction to our phones is often touted as one of the downfalls of the millennial generation — or something equally condescending — by the generations above us.
However, there are some people that should be held more accountable for this pseudo-addiction: the software developers themselves.
In an interview with Tristan Harris, a former Google employee and software developer looking to reverse digital dependency, The Atlantic uncovered that many companies are not really interested in their apps increasing the value of life.
Truly, software industries are often trying to get users to spend as much time on an application as possible through little tricks in the fabric of the app, such as the “triggering” red notification bubbles on Facebook.
There is a lot that goes into developing software, psychologically. It should be more important for developers to use their ability to affect a user’s psyche for good instead of for evil.
And by “for evil,” I mean “for almost taking away the agency of users and replacing it with the aching hunger to scroll through pictures and posts you’ve seen before.”
Harris suggests a sort of “Hippocratic oath” for software developers, wherein they would promise to uphold a certain code of ethics to protect the psychology of users when designing applications.
Software design already has a code of ethics, actually. The Association for Computing Machinery created a Code of Ethics for programmers.
An underlying theme of the code is respect for public interest, which includes a “commitment to the health, safety and welfare of the public.”
It seems to me that potentially brainwashing users for the sole purpose of keeping them on an application for longer may be in direct opposition to any commitment to the “welfare of the public.”
Harris also advocates for a more mindful way to launch applications.
Checking in on social media is second nature at this point because the apps are easily accessible to scroll and tap to at any time.
By introducing features to phones and other wireless devices that would require an individual to type in to a search bar what they are looking for, users would have to confront their habits more consciously and with more keystrokes.
Of course, these features aren’t things we can all create ourselves. We need programmers to work with us instead of against us.
We cannot continue to perpetuate the idea that millennials are simply technology addicts who cannot control themselves. We must work with developers to create mindful and meaningful products — and hold them accountable when those principles are not upheld.
@maggie_eickhoff
meickhof@indiana.edu
