ETEC 540 – Week 10
by zoe armstrong
Attention Economy
I related a lot to this week’s topic. I often find myself wasting what could be, very useful time on social media thanks to the autoplay feature and it was interesting to listen to both Harris and Tufecki dissect and present arguments on how dangerous features like autoplay can be. What really stood out to me from Harris’ (2017) Talk was when he said the goal for these advertisements is to race for our attention. Our attention is something we ultimately have control over, yet when it comes to social media, so many of us tend to lose this control.
This losing of control was something I felt when participating in the online game of User Inyerface. Here is my initial screenshot of completing the game:
What I got the most stuck on was:
- Green buttons representing things I should not be clicking or things that would send me backwards.
- Having a constant timer… as a competitive person this made me frustrated. More on this later.
- Having to erase the placeholder text before writing in my own. I think typically this deletes on its own?
- The select all and unselect all buttons mischievously placed within the other options.
- The months not being in order for entering a birthday as well as the slider for age not showing the number until you let go… I mean, come on!
Because I am rather competitive, I decided I would try the game a few times to beat my time. The game still caught me a number of times as I am just so used to doing things or rather clicking and typing things in a certain way. This muscle memory could prove to be quite dangerous and I could make for an easy target for some dark patterns. That said, here is my best time:
Harris brought up that the most common way that young people communicate is through Snapchat (2017). As a middle school teacher, I see this all the time. Students sending absolutely random photos of things to one another with little to no communicative intent. The amount of time these “messages” take from their daily lives has to be increasing everyday. Tufeki (2017) describes the way that humans no longer understand the way these algorithms work. It’s a scary feeling thinking about losing control of these algorithms knowing there is an upcoming generation of humans who rely heavily on social media to communicate and form what they think are connections with one another. It is important to have these conversations with students today to equip them to better handle the inevitable power that technology has and will continue to have.
References:
Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention?language=en
Tufekci, Z. (2017). We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads?language=en
Well said Zoey!! I agree with you wholeheartedly when you commented on how the way we communicate today has altered significantly and how our attention can basically be taken from us unwillingly at times. It goes to show how much power and influence social media has on us. You are absolutely right about how “it’s a scary feeling thinking about losing control of these algorithms knowing there is an upcoming generation of humans who rely heavily on social media to communicate and form what they think are connections with one another.” I always tell my daughter that it is important to evolve and move forward, but to also be aware of the traditional, simplistic methods of living life and that a balance and awareness is required in order to live a fully, happy, holistic life.