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The immediacy of access to information and connections with people is an expectation in 2025. Technology firms and parent holding companies creating these products are at a point where there are stakeholder demands and pressure to keep users’ attention, almost always putting profits over people. Yes, I won’t deny the fact that there are great outcomes made possible because of technology and social media connecting people, but after learning more about the humane aspects of technology from the Center for Humane Technology and additional research, my perspective has evolved.
I’m going to take a few minutes to explain what persuasive technology is and unpack some of its implications on attention and cognition, as well as social relationships.
Attention: The Most Precious Resource
Society is moving at a pace where the “instant economy” is the new normal. Whether it’s getting an item only two days later thanks to Amazon Prime, no longer having to wait for the next episode of your favorite television show to air, and spending hours of your day after working your 9-5 scrolling an infinite feed watching short-form videos, our brains are being rewired to crave dopamine and immediate gratification through all these forms of entertainment powered by persuasive technology, devices that use tested design strategies to manipulate human behavior towards a desired goal.
Nicholas Carr, author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, describes this phenomenon perfectly.
“What the net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.”
Image Source: Full Focus
According to Science News Today, research indicates that attention is deeply linked to emotional and spiritual well-being. If you have shallow attention, it fragments your emotional life. This article references studies that prove constant switching, especially during childhood and adolescence, is detrimental to brain functions such as impulse control, delayed gratification, and sustained attention.
I notice myself struggling a ton with sustained attention, especially at work, when I am put into certain situations forcing me to multitask. If I am creating a website registration page for a new event my department is hosting, I can’t have my email window open to see a new message about an alumni profile I should add to our social media queue. Whiplash between tasks makes it tough for me to stay in flow state and puts unnecessary pressure and anxiety on myself to dive into non-urgent work that doesn’t have my sustained attention.
Image Source: Science News Today
The Paradigms Isolating Instead of Uniting Us
To better understand why technology companies are under pressure to capture engagement and prioritize growth, we need to start by examining the negative implications on people, communities, and societies.
The Center for Humane Technology created the Ledger of Harms, a report of facts supported by citations to explain what some of these paradigms are and how they are affecting all of us.
One specific example that I believe will resonate with anyone, regardless of your profession, gender, ethnicity, or location, is social relationships. It’s important to acknowledge and not refute the fact that social networks do connect us, but they also distract us from connecting with the people right in front of us.
The Center for Humane Technology references evidence of this from a long-term study of 11,000 people, with strong results concluding that people with higher social media use had a direct correlation with a higher level of neuroticism and anxiety only one year later.
As I reconsider my habits, uses, and the time I spend on these platforms, I hope these insights provide some new perspectives on how to harness technology and leverage its positive attributes instead of the persuasive ones that create more harm than benefits.
Kyle Adams POV 
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