Big Tech and the decline of humanity

The past few years, whenever my birthday would be coming up, I would inevitably end up reflecting on things a little. This year isn’t much different; it might be a little worse. Whether it’s my age being closer to 60 than it is to 20, increasing tensions and uncertainty in the world, or having to deal with a pretty significant case of burnout – I had more things to reflect on than previous years. That’s also why this blog isn’t shipping on my birthday this year, but roughly 4 months after. Anyway, this year much of my thoughts revolve around the state of tech, and humanity.

I didn’t get ‘into tech’ as a toddler; we didn’t get an actual computer at home until I was 14 years old. But once we did it didn’t take long for me to take the thing apart to see what was inside, and then I went on to figure out how I could write my own programs. Only a handful of years later I landed my first ‘real’ tech job, while spending a lot of my free time ‘doing tech’. Tech excited me, and every bit of new tech improving on the old bits made that I could be learning, discovering, and improving basically forever.

I started working in tech for the love of tech. For the love of figuring out how to make things better and easier by using tech in a smart way. Over the past 20 years technological advancements made by (mostly just a handful of) Big Tech Companies have literally transformed every aspect of our lives.

But I’m not too sure we can conclude our lives just got better and easier because of it. If anything, the opposite might be true.

Money makes the world go round

Arguably the biggest issue with the Big Transformational Technological Advancements is that they don’t start to exist out of thin air. While some of them literally started in someone’s dorm room or garage in someone’s free time, it took serious money to bring this tech to the masses. And whenever someone decides to pour money into an idea, they usually don’t do so out of charity, but because they hope for a payout. And year-over-year profit growth.

In practice this means that no matter how pure and good some tech idea might be, it eventually needs to morph into a business model. A free service will inevitably sell your data, or feed you an ever-increasing amount of ads. Implement dark patterns and psychological tricks to make you spend more time on it (so you see more ads).

And suddenly it doesn’t feel so pure and good anymore. But it makes sense from a business perspective. Still, we manage to forget this every time something new comes along. Instead of stepping back and figuring out how this New Thing will exploit your privacy (or tie you into a subscription model), we jump on it, until we finally figure out how it’s actually making us worse.

Because it has.

Growing up without modern tech

I grew up before smartphones existed. Before mobile internet was mainstream (or usable). Before everyone and their dog had cameras everywhere and were live-streaming half their lives on 3 social media platforms. Before motor-assisted everything. Before Google, Meta, and 6 different governments knew my every move and what I had for lunch. Before Binge Watching. Before getting ‘tailored advertisements’ for something I never searched for online. Before ‘AI assistants’ that could generate essays and reports in mere seconds.

We pedaled our cheap, shitty bikes to school. Every day, no matter the weather. We’d get lost, and ask strangers for directions. We did silly stuff with our friends, and would categorically deny it ever happened because there was no proof of it anyway. Online bullying wasn’t a thing (you needed to bully in person). If you wanted to compare yourself to a photoshopped celebrity you’d have to go to the store and buy a magazine. You’d even have to select it yourself – no algorithms to feed you an endless stream of content you didn’t ask for.

We would also talk to one another, in real life. We would meet up and actually have something to talk about. We wouldn’t spend 6+ hours a day on our phones because calling and texting costed money, and there’s only so much Snake you can play.. We’d have calendars to remember our friends' birthdays, and we’d visit them, call them, or send them postcards. Internet and online communications like ICQ and MSN merely augmented the real world.

We’ve become less social

Today even 10-year-old kinds have smartphones, with cameras, and access to internet and online platforms. What they also have? Widespread online bullying. Social anxiety. Trouble focusing. Dopamine addiction. Obesity. Algorithmic content funnels influencing what they see, hear, think, and do. But it’s not just the 10-year-olds.

We experience other people’s lives through the lens of social media, and we show ours through the same. We adapt to ‘what the algorithm wants’ so that we get more likes. Touched-up images, superficial interactions, and playing by the rules of ‘the system’. We’ve even come to self-censor not to offend the Platform Overlords, because shadowbanning doesn’t exist until suddenly nobody can see your posts..

Today we have at least 3 social media platforms that will tell us whose birthday it is, including a call to action to send them a nice ‘Happy birthday’. Fake plastic social behaviour. I’m still getting tons of those every year on Facebook – I haven’t been active there in 10 years. I’ll be getting a few on Linkedin, all using the same wording. The post cards have mostly disappeared, as has genuine social interaction. Connection. Community. You may have 500+ contacts on Linkedin, or a 1000 followers on Instagram. But how many real social contacts do you even have?

And with the rise of AI technology, we’re quickly moving towards fake social interactions with computers. Are you ready to discuss your health issues with DoctorGPT yet?

We’ve become less attentive

A never-ending flow of distractions, and our addiction to them, has made us less present. We don’t even know how to be bored anymore, because once we have 2 seconds of nothing, we whip out our phones and check random things. The news. Social media. Email. Messaging platforms. Multiple times. Heck, if we don’t pick up our phones often enough, apps will be sending us useless notifications as a stimulant. Linkedin has been offering me ‘free premium’ for 10+ years now. Reddit will prompt me I might ‘lose my streak’. Even Strava will let me know ‘other people have worked out’. Even the news follows this pattern. We barely had “Live blogs” on news sites 10 years ago – today we have several, every single day.

We are on our phones when we’re in bed. When we’re doing groceries. On the train. When we’re having dinner. On the toilet. During a boring meeting we didn’t want to be in. And in traffic. We’re no longer present in the real world, though. Our anti-social, perpetually distracted behaviour even results in potentially deadly traffic accidents. And while Big Tech will inevitably come up with better Collision Prevention systems and better Autonomous Driving systems.. maybe we should just put the damn phones away.

We’re becoming dependent

We’ve become so accustomed to algorithms and ‘supportive tech’ that we’re slowly but steadily becoming dependent. We seem to have been programmed to believe that “convenience is good”, even if it comes at our own expense. We opt-in to convenience until we can’t really opt-out anymore.

While we struggle to deal with a rapid increase in both childhood and adult obesity (source), people consistently buy e-bikes over traditional non-assisted bikes. And while one could argue that health issues might prevent people from riding at all otherwise, that doesn’t apply to most of the population. Most people ride e-bikes because it’s more convenient than a traditional bike. Less effort, more speed.

A recent MIT study even concludes that using LLMs reduces neural connectivity, citing that their group of ChatGPT users, compared to a group of “brain only” and a group of “Google search allowed”, had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”

The more ‘help’ we get, the worse we get.

OK, Boomer

I realize that I might be the ‘old men yells at cloud’ by writing all this — and I’m not even that old at just 41. But increasingly Gen Z and even Gen Alpha are showing us that even though they have been living in a hyper-connected, hyper-assisted world since birth, they want to have less of it. They’re consciously looking for simplicity, real engagement, and being offline. By adopting ‘dumbphones’, using old iPods, and having ‘offline days’. Not for aesthetics or because of some TikTok trend, but to improve their mental health.

Maybe they have a point. And maybe, all is not lost for humanity then..