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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2018-03-01, Page 5Other Views We 've created a society of addicts As the federal government moves toward legalizing the use and sale of marijuana this summer, many Canadians still wonder if it's the right move. However, we have long since happily accepted a far more addictive presence for the majority of our population: smart phones and social media. Mounting evidence shows millions of smart phone users are showing all the symptoms of addiction. Dr. Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who teaches at both Columbia University and the University of Toronto and wrote the book The Brain that Changes Itself, says signs of addiction are evident in many smart phone users: compulsivity, loss of control of the activity, craving, psychological dependence and using something even if it's harmful. What's more, the phones and the apps on them are designed to be that way. Neuroscientists were hired by companies to help them design systems that make us check our phones again and again to see what's new. Montreal neuroscientist Daniel Levitin explains that human brains evolved seeking novelty as a way of surviving, exploring what foods were safe to eat, for instance. Now that basic urge triggers our helpless need to answer the latest Facebook notification or the buzz of an incoming e-mail. When our brains discover something new they release a spurt of dopamine which gives us pleasure. Some of the people who helped design these systems are now feeling guilt over their creations in what's called "the attention economy". "I think we all knew in the back of our minds... something bad could happen," Chamath Palihapitia, former vice-president of user growth at Facebook, told a meeting at Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk Stanford University. "The short-term dopamine -driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works" Tristan Harris, former product manager at Google has gone so far as to create Time Well Spent, a non-profit which aims to raise awareness among consumers about the dangers of the attention economy. You can't look away from your phone because these companies are "literally using the power of billion -dollar computers to figure out what to feed you," he says. Sean Parker, former president of Facebook admitted "You're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. [The inventors] understood this, consciously, and we did it anyway." They did it for money. Since these applications are free, they earn their revenue from selling information collected from the people who use the app. The more times people use the app, the more information they gather. They sell advertising to companies on the basis of targeting the audience of most use to the advertisers. Then, the more times people check their phone, the more times they'll see the clients' ads. Studies show average users check their phones 150 times a day. Add it all up and smart phone users spend three to five hours a day looking at their phones — the equivalent of seven years over an average lifetime. And it's changing us. We've all seen people THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018. PAGE 5. sitting side by side, not talking because each was attending to his phone. Catherine Steiner - Adair, a clinical psychologist and research associate in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, interviewed 1,000 kids between the ages of four and 18 and many of them told her they no longer run to the door to greet their parents because the adults are so often on their phones when they get home. Researchers say attention spans are dropping and even IQs are diminishing because distracted people have a reduced ability to accomplish complex tasks. It may get worse because of the unintended consequences of these apps (or who knows, perhaps these companies planned them, although it sounds like the plot of a 1970s James Bond movie about industrialists trying to take over the world). Neuroscientists say these tools are actually reshaping the way our brains work. Dr. Doidge says that teenagers need time alone to develop their sense of who they are as individuals but today they're never alone. Instead they see themselves reflected 24 hours a day in others' tweets and Instagram posts. Even sadder, psychologists say that the silent communication that takes place between a nursing mother and her child is important to the child's development, but if a mother sees this as down time and a good opportunity to check her phone, that essential bonding is lost. Everyone knows the world has changed since the invention of the iPhone a decade ago, but it's turning out it has changed more than we realized. These addictive tools are not going away. Since the companies behind them are global, we can't hope for government regulation to save us from ourselves. We need to train ourselves and our kids how to get the best from them without also getting the worst. Q and A - good for more than gripes As I sit through local council meetings, I often find myself able to answer a lot of the questions being asked around the table. Whether it's due to my fairly consistent presence at other events throughout the community or that I actually spend my Monday and Tuesday dinners reading through the council packages that answer so many of the questions asked by council members, I often sit there, hearing questions asked that either I could answer or can be answered in the council agenda package. Of course, there are then the situations where someone answers a question before it's asked, but a council member either wasn't paying attention or so badly wanted to have themselves tied to the question that he asks it anyway. Regardless of the situation that puts me there, there are times when I know exactly what information is needed, however, due to decisions by councils to get rid of their public forum sessions, the information can't be shared until after the meeting is finished. Take, for example, the most recent North Huron Council meeting. Councillor Trevor Seip was concerned about an announcement that an accommodation review for Blyth had been taken over by private interests. Such a study looks at what kind of options are available for people looking to spend a night, a week or a month in the community. The decision was announced at the Blyth Business Improvement Area's (BIA) January meeting, the minutes of which were distributed during North Huron Council's Feb. 20 meeting where Seip aired his concerns. Seip felt council had been put in a position it didn't want to be in by not having any ownership over the document. His concern is justified. Denny Scott Denny's Den The document is important for anyone who wants to pursue accommodations as a business in the community. Unfortunately, due to the absence of North Huron Council's representative on the BIA (which seems to be a running theme) and staffing changes at the municipality which have resulted in no staff member being present, no one was able to answer Seip's question. Well, no one but me. I sat there, knowing that, at that BIA meeting, Natasha Fritzley, Blyth Cowbell Brewing Company's representative on the BIA had calmed the same fears that Seip was expressing. She had done so because the BIA had asked the same question. Fritzley said that the document would be made available to interested stakeholders in due time. Now, I couldn't give a date as to when that review would be available (heck, as Fritzley explained, it was now a private venture and thus a start date wasn't even disclosed, let alone a publishing date) but I could have said to Seip, "The document will be made available to council eventually." Journalists are resources for both the general community and council members. We are a repository of local, modern information that is available when people take the time to ask (or give us the time to share our knowledge). I firmly believe that's why many of us get into the business. Sure, I originally started down the path to journalism because I wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but, as time went by, I realized working for a local newspaper lets you tell people stories they really want to know and that's a great job to have. So when we are denied the opportunity to share that information and potentially answer questions before a council meeting is ended (possibly negating the need for a staff report and the work and tax dollars that requires), it's a waste of resources. It used to be that I could, at a North Huron Council meeting, ask questions that I felt should be answered on the record or provide information based on knowledge I have that council members might not. It also used to be that people could talk to council about something on its agenda without having to be a delegation and council is missing out on important feedback because of that. For example, someone could come to a council meeting because they are interested in a planning issue, but have direct and relevant experience with another issue that could be extremely beneficial to council's decision- making process. By cutting out unplanned public input, council is depriving itself of important information that could help guide its decision- making process. That information could be as simple as saying a document will be available to North Huron council or as complex as detailing a planning matter that was made decades ago (that's not one I'm claiming, but one I've sat there listening to people in the gallery talking about). True, there are some bad apples who use a public forum as a means to try and embarrass council, but, for the most part, I see people willing and trying to help being denied that opportunity. Fix it. Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense The future is now We all live in a time of incredible technological advancements. All you have to do is think of how far the world has come in the last 10 years. Whether it's smartphones, online shopping or the internet, when you think of where we are now versus where we were a decade ago, it's hard not to be astounded at the progress. Whether it's been good or bad remains the subject of much debate. And, like most debates, the truth will likely fall somewhere in the middle. These advancements have brought with them both good and bad. Every now and then, however, an "advancement" makes you scratch your head and wonder if this is actually progress. Years ago, I thought it was particularly poignant when the Blyth Festival's Young Company raised the topic of calling someone on the phone versus texting them. As texting become more popular, it doesn't take a communications expert to draw parallels between texting and morse code and/or telegrams, bygone forms of communication. The Young Company asked the audience to imagine that timelines were reversed and that texting came first, followed by voice calls. Imagine the fascination. At first, you could only tap out a message to your friends and family, but now, you could actually hear their voices, just as they could hear yours. This isn't the only case of a "technological advancement" seemingly reclaiming tried and true methods from the past. I also wrote about a revelation award-winning screenwriter Mark Boal had when he hooked up with the podcast Serial. The man who has crafted some of the richest stories of the last 15 years said that podcasting was the way of the future, despite living in the era of high-definition television and immersive sound experience technology. Podcasting, aside from its life on the internes and on -demand properties, really isn't much different from the serialized radio stories that were so popular in the early 1900s. If Orson Welles was alive today and had a slick online marketing campaign, War of the Worlds would make a great podcast. Two more companies that seemingly revolutionized a pair of marketplaces now find themselves going backwards and asking the public to reward them for their innovation. Amazon, the Seattle -based online retailer that kickstarted the online shopping revolution that has changed the way the world does business (leaving many brick -and -mortar retailers bloodied along the way), has recently announced the expansion of its Amazon Go store program. Yes, the company that, for years, touted the benefits of shopping online while at the same time attempting to illustrate the irrelevance of the traditional "store" is now "revolutionizing the marketplace" and... building stores for us to shop in. Well done. Amazon isn't the only one. Airbnb, the online giant that allows regular folks to rent out their homes, apartments or extra rooms, has spent years undercutting the concept of the traditional hotel. Now, however, the company is working with a Florida developer to create a 300 -unit rental complex called "Niido powered by Airbnb". This is the first, the company has said, of six unit rental buildings Airbnb plans to build over the next two years. Many have been quick to point out that Airbnb is building a hotel and selling it to consumers as a brand new concept. Technology can be breathtaking and it can better our lives, but repackaging something that's been available to us for centuries simply isn't one of those times.