Former leaders in the multi-billion dollar industry are urging or quick measures to have the children population protected from addiction to smartphones. Among the leaders of this campaign is Tristan Harris who is a former senior employee of the tech giant Google. Mr. Harris recently launched a tactical group whose job is to collect, analyze and publish proof of how digital gadgets and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram may harm young people and especially children who have not yet attained the legal age.
While Harris worked at Google, he had a feeling that the company had great influence and power over millions of users who use the search engine on a daily basis. Harris made these sentiments while delivering a speech in Washington where he was invited to make an address at a tech conference. The organization’s leaders popularly known as the Center for Humane technology are former employees of the tech giants in Silicon Valley such as Microsoft and Oracle. These tech gurus hope to use their experience and vast knowledge in the tech industry to lead a cultural awakening initiative among the public in the United States and beyond about the dangers posed by modern technology.
Mr. Harris said that it has never happened before in human history that 50 men engineers aged between the ages of 20 and 35 within a radius of 50 miles in San Jose could shape the perceptions and feelings of two billion people worldwide and what they relate to. Harris continued to say that Google had found success in the building of user products that triggered some specific thoughts in the heads of their users. He added that the initial stage of any human undertaking is the thought process where we choose one of the thoughts to which we execute using an action. Mr. Harris said that tech giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook have a moral responsibility to avoid the creation of tech products that have the ability of hijacking how the human brain functions.
The conference where Mr. Harris delivered his speech had received sponsorship from Common Sense Media which is a family and child activist organization in the United States. The group says that multiple surveys and studies have suggested that more than half of the young people in their teenage years have a feeling of addiction to their mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Research also suggests that over 60% of the parents and guardians believe that the children are already addicted.
