I’ve been reading this article on the DailyMail.com with some startlement. It discusses how Facebook is hijacking our lives, quoting various former FB employees. This one, with Justin Rosenstein, the developer of the ‘Like’ feature, caught my eye:
Mr Rosenstein says he has banned all apps on his phone, including Facebook, because he doesn’t trust himself not to get addicted to them.
What started as a Silicon Valley success story could end in a future where people are permanently distracted by devices from the world around them, he argues. …
Mr Rosenstein believes that the lure of social media and other apps can be as addictive as heroin and that they are having a noticeably detrimental effect on people’s ability to focus. …
He argues that the solution to the problem may be state regulation of apps, which he views on a par with tobacco advertising, to minimise any harm they may be found to cause.
Speaking to The Guardian, he said: ‘It is very common for humans to develop things with the best of intentions and for them to have unintended, negative consequences.
‘Everyone is distracted, all of the time.
‘One reason I think it is particularly important for us to talk about this now is that we may be the last generation that can remember life before.
‘If we only care about profit maximisation, we will go rapidly into dystopia.’
My first reaction is that this isn’t a legal problem, it’s a maturity problem. If you find you can’t exercise good judgment while using something, then don’t use it. But should the government get involved just because something is affecting folks in a negative way that they should be able to handle themselves?
BUT. Remember Carrie Nation? Maybe not. She was an instrumental member of the movement that resulted in Prohibition, the era when the consumption of alcohol was banned in the United States. She was legendary for personally destroying the contents of bars and saloons with rocks and, later, a hatchet. But, in this context, it begs the question: why?
Because she saw drink as destructive to society, and men being unable to exercise good judgment in its consumption. (She was also a bit of a religious crazy, to be honest.)
I’m not interested in pushing an analogy here. What I’m getting at is that humanity has always had problems with self-control and discerning what is good for us – and what’s bad for us. I suppose if I were of the old-timey Christian tradition, I’d call them (or us) sinners, or maybe Epicureans in the false[1] belief that the word means dedicated to satisfying their baser urges.
Whether or not the banning of apps[2] – or Facebook – would work is probably something we’ll never find out, because I suspect it’ll be even more politically unpalatable than banning alcohol or tobacco. I hope what happens is that a societal consensus will build that leans against those apps that manipulate our emotional systems for financial or political gain, and leans towards those that have positive social attributes. Such a consensus would require a governmental lead, I do suspect, but simple legislation would probably never make it through the process – and be ineffective or have unintended consequences.
And that suggests that morality isn’t a private or context-less endeavour, but one that is informed by the surrounding society, and evolves as society comes to conclusions about the issues of the day.
1Wikipedia notes Epicurus believed “… that what he called “pleasure” was the greatest good, but that the way to attain such pleasure was to live modestly, to gain knowledge of the workings of the world, and to limit one’s desires.”
2Really, folks, they’re just computer programs.
