How do you wake up from The Matrix?

The Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” reveals all about the design of social media

For my final year of university, I wrote a thesis on “How are social media platforms using gambling methods to create psychological dependencies?”. I was interested in what was behind the success of social media platforms. To learn how to make my design effective and ethical for my work in the future. Exploring this idea similar to the documentary: “The social dilemma”.

To discuss aspects of the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design that lead to addictive social media platforms. By exploring literature on how the slot machine has influenced social media design, the attention economy, UX laws, psychological studies and how governing bodies are attempting to regulate social media platforms. (extract from my thesis)

Jeff Orlowski documentary highlights the gravity of the issues designed by social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and among others. Having tech experts “sounding the alarm on their own creations” including Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and Ex-Google design ethicist. Explaining how these data-driven systems work using psychology and AI.

“How could you use everything we know about the psychology of what persuades people and build that into technology?” — Tristan Harris

Interestingly the documentary presents clips of Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO of Social Capital and former VP of Growth at Facebook, but not interviewing him for this documentary. Even though a clip of him is presented right before the title scene making a statement which sets the tone for the documentary:

“I think the tools that have been created today are starting to erode the social fabric of how society works” — Chamath Palihapitiya

Social media platforms have entered the media and political culture that has changed consumer mindsets, and its stance towards confirmation bias, particularly in legislative conversations, is under this most fire. Most social media websites are designed to connect the individual with different users with similar viewpoints; that increases communication on their websites because some users experience talking to like-minded people. Nevertheless, the
selective data presented to users on social media impacts this language negatively. (extract from my thesis)

“If something is a tool, it genuinely is just sitting there, waiting patiently. If something is not a tool it’s demanding things from you.” — Tristan Harris

[Harris] explains how master manipulators such as magicians, successfully elude the human mind, explaining how human vulnerabilities are being exploited by technology “[the magician seeks] for blind spots, edges, vulnerabilities and limits of people’s perception, so they can influence what people do without them even realising it” (Harris, 2016). Designers perform in a similar way, constantly looking for ways to play with your psychological vulnerabilities to get your attention. (extract from my thesis)

But!

It must be noted that some creators of these products may have been unaware of the psychological underpinnings of their design decisions and may have not intended to be deceitful (Nodder, 2013, p.14). (extract from my thesis)

“How do you wake up from The Matrix, when you don’t know you’re in The Matrix?” — Tristan Harris

This documentary encourages us to become informed users and to take action. For me, I put the theory into practice creating the game Tipitap.

Lastly, to all the designers out there!

Design driven innovation has led to the success of many companies and now is the time to bring designers to the table to discuss the best way of implementing ethics into innovation. (extract from my thesis)