Ex Silicon Valley executives launch campaign against social networks

Ex-Silicon Valley executives, who helped to build Google and Facebook into the tech giants they are today, are joining forces to challenge the companies’ “erosive” effect on society

The group claims that “our society is being hijacked by technology”

“These are not neutral products..."

“I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,”
Source

When I was younger, if you wanted to talk to someone, you picked up the house phone (and hopefully had a cordless one for some privacy) and actually called them. If you wanted to see them in person, you went to their house and knocked on the door and asked if they were home. Things were good. I can look back with fondness at all the long conversations I had while hiding with the phone from my parents so they couldn't listen in. I can look back with fondness at it being socially acceptable to just show up at someone's house to see what they were up to. The world felt open and welcoming.

And then social media happened. Things like Facebook have completely taken the actual human interaction out of communication. Instead of actually interacting any more, we hide inside our own private little world of clicks and likes where we don't even have to leave our home or speak to anyone. I've witnessed myself the transition from considering an unexpected phone call exciting to thinking it a nuisance. I've seen the change from being welcomed at other's homes to being considered some kind of stalker for showing up unexpectedly to say hi and see how they're doing.
Worse yet, social media networks like Facebook and Twitter and whatever else people are using nowadays are designed in such a way as to manipulate and prey on user psychology while encouraging addictive behavior. This can have all sorts of negative effects, especially on kids and teens who are growing up in this social media world without knowing anything different. Low self-esteem, attention-seeking, poor social skills, predisposition to addiction, etc.

Well, important people are realizing this, and starting to fight back.
Some top executives from organizations such as Google and Facebook are creating initiatives to wake society up to the negative effects social media and technology are having on the world.

Center for Humane Technology
Our world-class team of deeply concerned former tech insiders and CEOs intimately understands the culture, business incentives, design techniques, and organizational structures driving how technology hijacks our minds. Since 2014, we’ve convened top industry executives, advised political leaders, and raised awareness of the problem for millions of people through broad media attention. Building on this start, we are advancing thoughtful solutions to change the system.

Common Sense Media
Common Sense is the leading independent nonprofit organization dedicated to helping kids thrive in a world of media and technology.

a reply to: trollz

Things like Facebook have completely taken the actual human interaction out of communication. Instead of actually interacting any more, we hide inside our own private little world of clicks and likes where we don't even have to leave our home or speak to anyone.

Imo, people are forced to sit and click because running to and fro these days is too expensive. Impersonal social media is a direct result of how much life costs. Its not that people don't want to interact , they appear more desperate for that than ever, imo.

They have been purposefully dumbed down, isolated and contained in boxes for their minds and their time.

My high school used to have the school notice board and once a week assembly in the main hall. That really was all the social media. Optional events were cinema club and walking home with friends. That's all we really needed. Add a phone call to tell use to go home because tea was ready.

Now the internet is good way for schools to keep parents up to date with events. But social media just blasts every event across the world for everyone to hear. With USENET you had some control over how far a message was sent; university ,workplace, city, country or world. People do have friends and family sent across the world, so it would make more sense to let people create their own domains and groups (schools, workplaces) rather than have Facebook or Twitter do it for them.

Times have changed, long ago it became less and less the case that people could be born, grow up, live in and die in the same town. The economy and the way it has been set up that the most important thing in life is money, doesn't allow for the 'good old days' of wandering over to your buddies house and having a quick chat.

Time is money and money is time as was drummed into our heads by the babyboomers and early GenXers. It is a world of their creation and now they look at our generation and say "Oh look at how these people ruined society" sorry but the blame is completely upon themselves.

Everyone is busy, busy busy busy, and everyone has been brought up to think of only themselves in almost all aspects of life. Its like how was said above, turning up on someones doorstep feels creepy. Yes, because our lives are so full of random crap these days that we cannot automatically drop everything the moment someone just arrives unless it is expected. The selfish part of it is that we have been brought up and taught that our time is valuable and thus... HOW dare someone interject with anything that we want to do in our free time, unexpected. how rude!?!

Also the good old days were not that good. As a child, knocking on someones door would typically get you a mouth full of abuse where I grew up... and most would consider where i grew up to be a really really nice place... respect ones elders? nope... my memory of my elders other than my parents is that people are assholes 90% of the time.