Suddenly, concern.
Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
51–60 of 129 posts
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only a contradiction if you think short term. Long term, it's clearly in Google's interest to engender sustainable consumption. People who are comfortable with the role their smartphones play in their lives are much more valuable consumers than addicts who are apprehensive over it. They are also much less likely to seek radical action which may damage Google in hard to predict ways.
It has not, historically, been in the nature of companies to think or act in the long term. People inside companies have incentives to bring short term profits, while long term profits benefits only the company as a whole, not any individual internal actor who may be positioned to make them happen. Therefore, they don’t happen, and large organizations basically always act only in the short term.
This isn’t true. There are many companies that make long term decisions at the expense of short term value. The reason it doesn’t feel that way is because those are the kinds of moves and companies that tend to fly under the radar, while short term blockbuster moves get trotted out as examples more often because the consequences, good or bad, tend to be more of a spectacle.
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#53I do not agree with any of this. It is a personal choice. I am old and spent much of my day behind a screen my entire life. Do not need anyone to tell me to take a step away.
Google really just needs to do their own thing and stop listening to all the chatter about this and that.
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#54It's clearly a contradiction. Companies like Google thrived on addictive behavior of users online. Now that Google basically is the Internet for consumers they want to crack down on online and tech addiction? Really? What I've read in the article means to me that Google will toss away the responsibility to users by making them aware of their usage patterns. "We told them they need a break from consuming our apps, but…
It's only a contradiction if you think short term. Long term, it's clearly in Google's interest to engender sustainable consumption. People who are comfortable with the role their smartphones play in their lives are much more valuable consumers than addicts who are apprehensive over it. They are also much less likely to seek radical action which may damage Google in hard to predict ways.
[deleted]
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#55"Less addictive" = more dependent on Google.
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#56"We know our smartphones are making us unhappy." [link to an article describing a study that put people in a contrived, artificially distracting situation and then pointed out that they enjoyed their time less]
Is that the best evidence you have? Because it's crap.
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#57They already did that by introducing Material Design. Its blandness, huge whitespaces, inability to recognize clickable objects are so off-putting that I ran away from Android already and interact with it only when I have to and with variable doses of cognitive pain.
Thanks Google for preventing me from becoming a smartphone addict by design!
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#58I am feeling cynical because none of the announcements mentioned notifications or random reward content. Nor am I familiar with research that shows grayscale reduces addictiveness.
I like the put down gesture silencing phones, but there's two things wrong with it. 1) it encourages you to leave the phone easily accessible instead of turning it off 2) its exactly the kind of corporate move to give just enough control to the individual to make it seem like Google's business model is that person's own moral failings.
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#59If Google really wanted to help here, why don't they just, you know, make every part of YouTube less optimised for maximum view time. Remove autoplay, turn down the recommendations. Nah, we're gonna throw some optional, possibly ineffective shit into our mobile OS instead so we can say we did something.
Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
#60Corporation's are made of people and people don't only have the direct interests of the company in mind. I don't understand the commenters responding negativepy to these proposals; by all means be circumspect, but don't criticize a company for making a positive change just because you think it doesn't go far enough.
So, you clearly don't understand the hypocrisy behind Google's efforts? How naive can you possibly be? People at Google are having a job which is essentially having only the interests of the company in mind! No-no-no, do not try to spin it like that! Corporations are made of jobs . People have obligations working those jobs. Sure, they are people, but only in the sense that they have human rights as well. What Google…
You make an accusation without support against Google and then use that as support for another accusation against the poster. This has the effect of leaving unbiased observers to wonder what the basis for your moral outrage is.
Those same things that are addictive are also empowering and useful. Giving someone a way to handle it properly is a responsible way to do provide that service.