In early November Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said that the platform is testing the long-awaited Take a Break feature to give users reminders when they’ve spent a long time on the platform. It’s a cheery presentation that strangely did nothing to assuage my cynicism about how guilty Instagram/FaceBook has been when it comes to intentionally designing their platforms to be addictive – and therefore – severely difficult to take a break from (as I wrote in “All Children Need a Laptop” re: Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen testimony to a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation).

Mosseri gives a sincere performance with that touch of “I care for you and Instagram cares for you” feeling. For all I know, he’s being genuine… but who can tell?

The Verge reported that users will have to opt in to the feature to activate it. Critics rightly ask, what teenager will self decide to activate a feature to take a break from a platform that has already addicted them?

In theory, someone could scroll right past activation cue. If they choose “turn on,” they’ll then be prompted to choose what length of time they want to spend on the app before they receive the reminder. The reminder will then pop up with a list of suggestions: “take a few deep breaths, write down what you’re thinking, listen to your favourite song, do something on your to-do list.”

In “The Utility and the Power” I wrote about “the subtle embrace, even the unrestrained attachment our generation has to the power of technology, and its subsequent reduction of the person” to the metrics of utility. Little by a lot, our worth seeps away into the screen and we become its tool. I’m not talking about a Terminator-like conspiracy; I’m talking about the ways we become dehumanized.

Disconnecting for Better Connection?

Remarkably, world renown singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran recently revealed that he hasn’t had a smartphone since 2015!

Dealing with the Addiction to Spiritual Opium

If you can’t or won’t disconnect voluntarily, perhaps you’d prefer China’s way of dealing with the screen addiction of its youth: it has forced a limit of three hours a week (!) for video gamers. It is a dramatic and bold move that only a totalitarian government can impose, as Reuters reported:

SHANGHAI, Aug 30 (Reuters) – China has forbidden under-18s from playing video games for more than three hours a week, a stringent social intervention that it said was needed to pull the plug on a growing addiction to what it once described as ‘spiritual opium’.

For helpful ideas on limits, see the “Four Principles for Screen Time.”

An interesting choice of words to say “spiritual” opium by an atheist government that nevertheless recognize the addiction of its youth. According to the Center for Humane Technology,

The Chinese government considers its biggest rival to be [not the US as we would think, but] its own technology companies.

It’s China’s tech companies who threaten its capacity to build a competitive China. That’s why the Chinese government is cracking down on social media — for example, by limiting the number of hours youth can play video games, and banning cell phone use in schools. China’s restrictions on social media use may be autocratic, but may also protect users more than what we see coming from the US government.

It’s a complicated picture.

The Toxic Sludge of Misinformation

In early December one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for Journalism (Philippine journalist Maria Ressa) attacked US internet companies for what she called a “flood of toxic sludge” on social media, saying that technology giants had “allowed a virus of lies to infect each of us”.

For more on her and fellow Nobel Prize winning journalist, see their interview with the BBC.

So I ask again

What is your relationship with technology as it relates to your spiritual journey?

What restraint have you shown with the spiritual opium/toxic sludge of technology?

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For more see: “Indistractable” or “Social Media and the Soul.”