1.

• The Attention Economy – Singularity Hub
  • Whoever can get the most attention on the internet gains the most brand recognition. Because of this, advertisers have different values for the different ways they gain our attention. This system of values is known as the attention economy. 
• Suggestion Algorithms Showing More Controversial Content – Humane Tech
  •  Youtube currently has algorithms in place to suggest more interesting and controversial videos rather than ones that could more directly relate to what you’re watching. This has lead to flat earth, anti vax, and anti-climate change videos to be recommended more favorably than more science based ones. 
• Technology as an Addiction- Yes Magazine
  • Technology releases dopamine in your brain, a phenomenon which can lead to addiction in the right people and settings. While we aren’t open to this idea as a culture, the World Health Organization has recently classified gaming addiction as a disease and experts consider it similar to a gambling addiction. 

2.

• Reddit
  • A multipurpose social media platform used to share a variety of internet content.
• Facebook
  • A massive social media platform used to connect friends and share life events.

3.

• Attention
  • I have checked both of these websites at least once while writing this assignment, so I do consider them both to be rather distracting. 
• Mental Health
  • I consider any mental health damage I’ve suffered from Facebook to be not the fault of Facebook itself. While seeing things other people are doing/have done might lead to false sense of not doing anything or “fear of missing out”, I do believe that managing your own expectations is a part of living in the information era. Reddit has always been more of a coping mechanism and less of something that damaged my mental health. 
• Relationships
  • I remain anonymous on Reddit, I don’t form any relationships with anyone who I interact with on there. Facebook has only been a tool for my relationships, rather than a crutch. While I do agree with the points that Humane Tech are making, and the statistics fit our culture as a whole, I think my individual experiences with it have been an outlier.
• Democracy
  • Both sites have issues with content moderation. While Facebook is entirely moderated by their own staff, which is done largely inaccurately, Reddit is moderated by volunteers of subcommunities, which can lead to fair or unfair moderation, depending on the community.
• Children
  • Social media is definitely shaping the way children are learning. I don’t think I can speak to how children are being raised accurately, but I do think we need to better consider how social media is influencing the youth and act accordingly. 
• Do Unto Others
  • Humane Tech makes a really good point here. I think tech CEOs are so open about how they feel about the tech they produce is because I think we all kind of have an understanding of what tech has become. The speed of how fast this tech was introduced to the public lead to a stark transition of a generation of people born without screens living with one born in the midst of a digital renaissance. It is this not-so-subtle change which lead these tech giants to be so open about their products. 

4.

After evaluating both platforms, I consider Reddit to be the more humane site, although it definitely isn’t without it’s faults. The big difference is how the platform decides to introduce content to its users. While other platforms, like Facebook, use their own “secret recipe” to determine how people see what, Reddit uses a system called “karma”, where users give points of karma to posts which they enjoy seeing, and get to take a point of karma away for posts they don’t. This karma is measured on your profile and highly sought after, encouraging their users to post good content. Their big struggle is, due to the content moderation being volunteer based, decisions of what content breaks the rules and what doesn’t is very much personal discretion. Facebook is a data farming corporate puppet which somehow manages to come off as both an all knowing god and a complete garbage fire. I’m only on the platform because it’s the best way to communicate to everyone I know effectively. 

As for redesign, I really liked the idea that Singularity Hub suggested where we were the ones establishing how we wanted our data to be used, and submitted our own “terms of use” that the platforms had to agree to. While that solution may solve a lot of problems, it definitely isn’t the cleanest or logistically possible one. We are very much in a tricky spot right now when it comes down to responsible internet/media use. Tech companies looked for finding needs that the consumer wanted filled and looked to fill those needs as efficiently as possible. At no point did any of these companies consider the effects of what they were producing, as long as they were profiting. The best solution would have been to ensure these new technologies were released responsibly. I think ethics plays a large part in this issue and the whole study should be considered more often when it comes to social media. Humane Tech suggested teaching engineers ethics when developing new platforms, but brushed it off as unachievable. While I don’t think teaching engineers ethics in addition to their other studies is viable, I do think we should be hiring technology ethics experts during the development of any new tech.