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When you wake up in the morning, you impulsively go looking for it. You step away from your desk and search your pockets. While you're waiting for the bus or at a red light, you have a second or two of free time and you grab it. When you can't get it, you want it. When you leave the house without it, you panic.
It's the smartphone. It's the modern cigarette.
There has been a long-running discussion recently about the addictive effects of technology on kids, spurred by the publication of the book “The Anxious Generation” and the U.S. Surgeon General's recent call for warning labels. The data is slowly coming in and confirming what our eyes and ears have been telling us for years: cell phones are having a negative effect on kids. Suicide rates are rising dramatically and depression rates are soaring. The beginning of this surge can be traced back to the rise of social media, which was accelerated by smartphones.
Technology will one day be treated like alcohol and tobacco. Its use by people whose brains are still forming should be carefully considered. We can debate what are effective and ineffective ways to set boundaries, but there is no room for debate. Clear boundaries have long since been needed. There is a five-alarm fire going on right now, and we don't have time to debate what color the fire trucks should be.
But, of course, kids aren't the only problem. We live in the most connected era in human history, but rates of loneliness are also skyrocketing. The U.S. Surgeon General has even called it a public health crisis. One-third of Americans say they feel lonely every week.
Rates of gambling addiction are also on the rise, but good data on that is hard to find. Casinos and sportsbooks are now in our pockets 24/7. The human cost of this will not be noticed for years. But as we continue to watch professional athletes lose their jobs and lifelong dreams because they cannot resist gambling, and watch the press conferences announcing their bans sponsored by gambling websites, the cognitive disconnect should be excruciating for any normal, empathetic human being.
In my work, it's clear that constant access to technology has enabled organized crime to commit fraud on a scale previously unimaginable. Losses from fraud are on the rise, but that cold dollar figure doesn't come close to express the human cost to victims who have lost faith in themselves, in love, or the basic trust it takes to conduct small business transactions.
Meanwhile, AI is the hottest buzzword out there, and while it doesn't actually amount to much, there's one thing we all know: AI is cost-savings aka job loss, and I'm pretty sure my hunch is that AI will soon make the days of auto-reply voicemail trees look long gone.
As the Surgeon General wrote last week, “In an emergency, we cannot afford to wait for perfect information. We assess the facts available, use our best judgment, and act quickly.”
In all these areas, and many more you can currently imagine, technology is dramatically transforming our lives, never mind the unintended consequences. This has to end. When critics like me argue, the inevitable response is a flip of the finger and melodramatic predictions that almighty “progress” will be thwarted if regulation slows down big tech companies.
You call this progress?
Schools, put your smartphones in your lockers (like Yondrs does). Parents, understand do not disturb settings. Sports industries, protect your business models from unfair advantage before it's too late. Anti-government nihilists, get out of the way of the FTC and Congress as they try to set national policy. We've let perfectionism be the enemy of good and the friend of lobbyists for too long. The time for self-care is over. Sound the fire alarms now.
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