On May 18 and 19, 2017, the The Next Web Conference place in Amsterdam. In addition to the many latest technological developments and gadgets, the event also had room for a critical edge. Three great speakers, Amber Case, Nir Eyal and James Williams talked about the negative side of technology and warned about the scarcity of human attention.

The Age of Disruptive Technology

It is predicted that by 2020 there will be as many as 50 billion devices in this world. During her talk at The Next Web Conference, Amber Case rightly questioned whether this is a good development. After all, according to Case, we live in an era of disruptive technology. The technology we produce today is optimized for the wrong purposes. Devices demand more and more attention and often without our consent (conscious or unconscious).

Our attention as a scarce resource

We adopt new technology so quickly that we often don't have time to think about how technology affects us, let alone how we can control it. One of the ways technology has a hold on us is through the excess of information we are faced with on a daily basis. This endless amount of information means that our attention has become a scarce commodity. Companies are doing everything they can to get their customers to spend as much time with their products as possible. They compete for their customers' attention.

Time Well Spent

Technologies are so intertwined with our daily lives that they directly affect them. There is what Williams calls a crisis of self-regulation: people are no longer free to choose where they give their attention. We pay for the attention we give to technology (to companies) with the good things we could otherwise have accomplished in the same amount of time. With the Time Well Spent movement Williams is trying to align technology with our humanity. We need to learn how to limit our ‘time spent’ with these technologies.

Akrasia

Nir Eyal, in his talk at The Next Web, also confirms the mismatch between our purpose as human beings and the purpose of the market, our dependence on technology and the amount of attention we devote to technology. According to Eyal, we suffer from a form of Akrasia: we do things even though we know it is not good for us or that we should not do it. Technology is fun and the products keep getting better too. Incredibly quickly, we are able to adapt our behavior and incorporate technological improvements into our lives. According to Eyal, we must begin to ask ourselves whether technology serves us or whether we serve technology. Human beings are powerless if we think we are powerless.

From habit to addiction

Because technology is designed to gain as much of our attention as possible, it is not surprising that people become addicted. But who is responsible for that? What role should companies play in relation to these addicts? Indeed, with the many opportunities to collect user data, it is not difficult to find out which users are experiencing these problems. The data shows exactly how long and often someone uses the technology. Nir Eyal believes that the responsibility lies with the companies and urges people not to invest in or work for companies that make money from people who want to stop using a particular technology.

Culture can change

According to Eyal, we must remember that it is not technology where things go wrong. It is our culture and culture we can change. For example, change your notification settings, don't sleep next to your phone and only use applications in your browser. And Case also gives a way to combat our attention deficit during her talk. She follows Mark Weiser and John seely Brown in thinking that we should focus more on developing ‘calm technology. Case lists a number of requirements that this calm technology should include:

• Technology should not need all our attention.
• Technology should enhance the periphery, utilize all the senses. Right now we design all technology as if it were a desktop.
• Technology should reinforce the best of technology and the best of humanity. Machines are not people and people are not machines.
• Technology can communicate, but it doesn't have to talk.
• As we develop technology, we must take human standards into account. Some people are not yet ready for technology.
• The right amount of technology is the minimum. We want more boring technology.
• Technology should make use of the near and the far.