Ex-Google boss says you’re ADDICTED to your smartphone and it’s time to kick the habit
Tristan Harris co-founded the pioneering Time Well Spent initiative which wants people to spend LESS time using technology
A FORMER Google boss is calling on the digital generation to end their smartphone addiction in a groundbreaking project.
Tristan Harris co-founded the Time Well Spent initiative which wants people to spend LESS time using technology.
The project released an inspirational poetic video above featuring a man distracted by a dancing bear which concludes: “Imagine a future where technology is built on our values, not our screen time.”
Harris, an ex-product philosopher with the search engine giants, fears we are addicted to smartphones, television on demand and social media sites because of the way they are designed.
The 32-year-old himself ditched his iPhone which he calls a "slot machine in my pocket" because it is so addictive.
He explained that the most successful-websites and apps tap into human's basic needs for approval, such as through instant likes and friend requests.
The constant notifications and content interrupts everyday life and keeps people glued, says Harris.
He added: “There needs to be new ratings, new criteria, new design standards, new certification standards.
“There's a way to design based not on addiction.”
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In an interview with , Harris explains how he hopes to create a Time Well Spent certification which will revolutionise software design.
This certificate would encourage companies to create systems that push people towards not using their apps and phones instead of keeping them addicted.
An example would be an inbox that asks how much time we want to dedicate to an email and reminds users when they exceed their quota.
The promotional video featuring the man hooked on the bear video said we should spend time "giving not sucking innovation".
The narrator says: "The future is not all screens it's humanity enhanced."
Harris' start up company which installed pop ups across thousands of sites was purchased by Google in 2011.
When working at Google, he produced a 144-page slide presentation which outlined his concerns, and gained the attention of 5,000 employees including the CEO Larry Page.
He wrote in the presentation: “Never before in history have the decisions of a handful of designers (mostly men, white, living in SF, aged 25–35) working at 3 companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook— had so much impact on how millions of people around the world spend their attention.
"We should feel an enormous responsibility to get this right.”
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