Tech Platforms Endanger Children and Society, Say Senators and Others

Tech companies and the U.S. government need to study ubiquitous social media and mobile tech and prevent their use from harming children and society, said legislators, physicians and advocates at a Common Sense event Wednesday. In trying to make apps, mobile video, games and social networking more attractive, tech companies created addictive products that are causing harm, said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. John Delaney, D-Md. The constant reliance on mobile technology “isn’t a drug, but it might as well be, because it does the same thing,” said Robert Lustig, pediatric endocrinologist at University of California, San Francisco. “It works on the same part of the brain.”

Delaney and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., are together working on legislation that would commission a study from the National Institutes of Health on the cognitive and behavioral effects of technology on children, Delaney said. “We should insist that government play a role” in deciding how tech will interact with kids, he said. The legislation will be introduced “in the coming weeks,” Markey said. Facebook and others “can and must take heightened care in ensuring they create a safe and controlled environment for their young users, complete with parental consent,” Markey said.

Warner issued similar warnings Wednesday about the IoT, which he said could include 20 billion devices by 2020, most with insufficient security. Security researchers have uncovered numerous vulnerabilities in connected toys, he said. Warner is seeking legislation to bar federal purchases of IoT devices that don’t include a minimum amount of security, a measure he called “low-hanging fruit.” There's “a heck of a lot more work to be done,” Warner said.

Weaponizing social media is a new and cheaper way to wage war, Warner said, referring to suspected Russian interference in U.S. elections. America is “not prepared” to defend against such meddling, he said. “Nothing the Russians did stopped in 2016,” he said. The pervasiveness and effects of social media are “not a problem we can punt,” he said.

Many urged more government regulation and oversight of the sector. “There should be common-sense regulation of tech companies,” said Common Sense CEO James Steyer. “Why has tech had a free pass?” One of the fastest ways to force change on tech giants would be for them to be required to explain data collection and anti-privacy practices in a congressional hearing, said Elevation Partners co-founder Roger McNamee, adviser to the Center for Humane Technology. Antitrust action should be taken against companies like Facebook and Google to prevent them from acquiring other companies and stifling innovation, McNamee said: Laws should be changed to give consumers ownership of their online data profiles, to encourage competition.

The digital market has “perverse incentives” that hurt children, Warner said. Panelists said the advertising-based business model of Facebook, YouTube and other platforms motivates the design of features intended to monopolize attention and reward constant use. “This isn’t an opinion,” said former Google design ethicist and founder of the Center for Humane Technology Tristan Harris. “This is what hundreds of engineers go to work every day to do.” Since people have only so much attention to give, tech companies are motivated to use powerful persuasion techniques to hold their share of that attention, Harris said. Those techniques are invented by artificial intelligence, and the brain can’t compete with their strategies for driving people to grow dependent on their devices, Harris said. Use of platforms such as YouTube and Facebook is tantamount to playing chess against a supercomputer, Harris said -- the computer is sure to win. “This is an existential threat,” he said.

Platforms should be encouraged to move away from ad-based to a subscription model, Harris said. Though that would mean software and online platforms that are now free would cost consumers, “the free advertising model costs us everything,” he said. Tech platforms should be redesigned to be more “humane” and align with the goals of users, Harris said. Displays shouldn’t be designed to monopolize attention or reward obsessive use, he said.

Constant use of technology in young children can interfere with development of impulse control and self-coping mechanisms, said Jenny Radesky, developmental behavioral pediatrician with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Mobile media “occupies” interpersonal spaces between parents and children, she said. Technology companies like Facebook stimulate the brain to produce dopamine, and overstimulation gradually degrades the brain’s prefrontal cortex, Lustig said. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that “keeps you from doing stupid things,” he said. Degrading that portion leaves children far more susceptible to addiction and mental health disorders, he said.

“This is an important conversation we’ve been having with parents and experts for a while and we’re eager to continue," said Facebook Global Head-Safety Antigone Davis in a statement to us. "Not all screen time is the same and more than talking, we're funding research grants and we’ve taken concrete steps, from our recent changes to News Feed to parent controls in the ads-free Messenger Kids app." Markey slammed the app. "We are specifically concerned about where sensitive information collected through this Messenger app could end up and for what purpose it could be used," he said.