"Our minds can be hijacked" by smartphones

Paul Lewis (The Guardian, 10/6/17); Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Dystopia: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - 1984

Campaign launched to limit amount of time children spend online (Alamy/The Guardian)

"Our minds can be hijacked": the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

Google, Twitter, and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the Internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley "refuseniks" alarmed by a race for human attention

Justin Rosenstein had tweaked his laptop’s operating system to block Reddit, banned himself from Snapchat, which he compares to heroin, and imposed limits on his use of Facebook.

But even that wasn’t enough. In August, the 34-year-old tech executive took a more radical step to restrict his use of social media and other addictive technologies.
 
Rosenstein purchased a new iPhone and instructed his assistant to set up a parental-control feature to prevent him from downloading any apps.

He was particularly aware of the allure of Facebook “likes,” which he describes as “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure” that can be as hollow as they are seductive. And Rosenstein should know: He was the Facebook engineer who created the “like” button in the first place.

1984: "Refuseniks"? What the hell is that?

A decade after he stayed up all night coding a prototype of what was then called an “awesome” button, Rosenstein belongs to a small but growing band of Silicon Valley heretics who complain about the rise of the so-called “attention economy”: an internet shaped around the demands of an advertising economy.

• Are smartphones making our children sad? US psychologist Jean Twenge, who has claimed that social media is having a bad affect on the young, answers critics who accuse her of crying wolf.

Rise of Trump: holds attention (John Locher)

These refuseniks are rarely founders or chief executives, who have little incentive to deviate from the mantra that their companies are making the world a better place.

Instead, they tend to have worked a rung or two down the corporate ladder: designers, engineers, and product managers who, like Rosenstein, several years ago put in place the building blocks of a digital world from which they are now trying to disentangle themselves.

“It is very common,” Rosenstein says, “for humans to develop things with the best of intentions and for them to have unintended, negative consequences.”
 

Most of the US has low opinion of Trump.

Rosenstein, who also helped create Gchat during a stint at Google, and now leads a San Francisco-based company that improves office productivity, appears most concerned about the psychological effects on people who, research shows, touch, swipe or tap their phone 2,617 times a day.
 

"We shall overcomb."

There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is contributing toward so-called “continuous partial attention,” severely limiting people’s ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ.

One recent study showed that the mere presence of smartphones damages cognitive capacity -- even when the device is turned off. “Everyone is distracted,” Rosenstein says. “All of the time.”

“It is very common for humans to develop things with the best of intentions that have unintended, negative consequences.”

- Justin Rosenstein, creator of the 'like' button

But those concerns are trivial compared with the devastating impact upon the political system that some of Rosenstein’s peers believe can be attributed to the rise of social media and the attention-based market that drives it. More (Comments)

Money: Putting "Panic" in Perspective

Largest stockpile of cash ever seized: tend to riches lest the Market or Gov't eat them.

NOT FDIC INSURED • MAY LOSE VALUE • NO BANK GUARANTEE

Six facts to help dispel the fear and 10 key reminders for investors

Chief Investment Strategist Corner (October 8, 2008)
James Swanson, CFA

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Six facts
1. In January of 1970, a bear market started that lasted until May of that year. The market during that time fell 35.4%. In May, a bull market began that lasted until January 1973 and brought a 124% gain in stock values.

2. In April 1981, another bear market commenced that lasted nearly a year and brought a 24.7% decline. Then, in March of 1982, the market began to rise and continued doing so until June 1983, bringing an overall gain of 71.7%.

3. July 1990 brought a downward market that lasted three months, until October 1990, at which point equity prices had fallen 22.4%. Then, in the same month, a new, now legendary, bull market took hold and lasted nearly eight years, until July 1998, delivering a 330.7% gain for the market.

4. Dating back to 1975, 8 of the last 15 bull markets have started in the autumn months of September, October, and November.

5. Since 1957 there have been 15 bear markets, as measured from peak to trough, and on average they have lasted 10 months and brought an average decline of 29.4%.

6. The duration and degree of these bear markets were significantly less than the duration and magnitude of bull markets. During the same period, there were also 15 bull markets, which lasted, on average, 30 months and brought average gains of 112.5%.

10 key reminders for investors
1. Panics are based on emotion, and emotions can take on a life of their own. A herd-like mentality develops, and words that start to be used repetitively — such as “collapse,” “endless,” and “plunge” — only feed the frenzy. But it is important to remember that emotions are not your friend when it comes to making big decisions about your savings, retirement, or college money.

2. Individuals and the professional managers they hire to oversee their long-term assets are investors, not traders. There is a big difference. For investors, what matters is the long run, not today’s events.

3. No one is alone in their concerns. We all have lots of company.

4. Panics and downturns are part of the free market system. They have occurred throughout history. While this knowledge may not ease the pain, these sharp, sudden downturns still have to be recognized as part of a cycle that often includes years of slow and steady upward progress.

5. Historically, bear markets, recessions, and market panics have been relatively brief in comparison with the duration of bull markets. Since World War II, economic expansions have, on average, lasted five times longer than recessions, and bull markets have been twice as long as bear markets.

6. Cyclical downturns have historically been connected to credit excesses. This time is no different. Prudence in borrowing will be rewarded in the next cycle.

7. Collapses do not bring everything to a halt. Even during the worst of down times, people still go about their lives, raising children, going to work, and planning for the future.

8. Risk-seeking in the markets has vanished. But the pursuit of risk is a normal state for the markets. U.S. Treasury bills may look smart today, but at some point risk-seeking will return. It always has.

9. The largest government bodies in the world have acted to lessen the severity of this crisis.

10. You cannot control events. You can only control your response to them.

The Root of Money

(new 10/02/08 version)