Former Google and Facebook employees start organization against ‘tech addiction’

A group of former employees of Google and Facebook, among others, has teamed up with scientists to set up a non-profit organization to combat ‘addiction’ to technology and social media. The organization wants to target campaigns at schools, among other things.

The organization believes that services such as Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube pose a threat to our mental health, children and democracy. That’s why she’s targeting 55,000 American schools to educate children about the addictive traits of such services, The New York Times reports.

The people behind the organization believe that companies like Facebook and Google make money from getting as much time and attention from people as possible, designing their services in a way that makes it hard to stop. For example, it is possible to scroll endlessly on Facebook, Snapchat has ‘streaks’ to encourage users to keep sending messages to someone every day and YouTube uses autoplay, where the site or app automatically counts down to showing the next, related video.

The organization includes former employees of Facebook and Google, among others. The organization does not come out of nowhere. One of the initiators is former Google employee Tristan Harris, who previously drew attention to this issue with Time Well Spent. A former Facebook CEO said at the end of last year that he believes that social media has harmful consequences for society.

While many services do indeed appear to be designed to hold attention, by current definitions there is no tech addiction. The World Health Organization wants to classify excessive gaming as a disorder, but this is not yet the case with excessive use of social media, apps or internet services.