What makes more money in America than baseball, movies, and theme parks combined? That was the opening question posed by Max Stossel in his lecture about technology. The answer: slot machines. Technology and slot machines are both successful based on the premise of “variable rewards” — sometimes you get a “hit” and sometimes you don’t, but the intervals of the rewards entice you to keep trying, over and over again.
Stossel, the Founder and CEO of Social Awakening, a nonprofit organization that shares how technology and social media impact people’s lives, doesn’t believe that the use of technology is bad, rather he seeks to make people become more aware and intentional about how they use it.
“If we carried a bottle of alcohol in our pocket 24/7 and it was updated every day to make it even more delicious for us, we would all be alcoholics,” he said. The same addictive nature applies to smartphones.
Most people realize that social media is rampant with digital manipulation, yet every single aspect of the app is designed to garner more and more of people’s time. We know the stories about people who scroll for hours and hours, but Stossel said one of the concerns is that people jump onto their phones the minute there is a lull — at the table, at a stoplight, while waiting for friends, etc. — and then they get sucked in (by design).
He offered many suggestions on how to combat overuse, including buying a physical alarm clock instead of starting your day on your phone, turning off all notifications except those from a human, and considering what other options you have to fill in gaps of time in the moment so you leave your phone alone.
He challenged the audience to give up social media for a day or week and see how it made them feel. “Are you really the one using technology or is technology using you?” he asked. Something to ponder instead of scrolling through Instagram tonight.
