Humane Design Abbi downer, jalyssa Beason, tereza Holubcova

Physical Health

Smart phones largely impact our physical health in negative ways. Our posture worsens, our sleep depletes, our eyes strain, and we are less physically active.

“Second to smoking, physical inactivity is the second highest cause of preventable death in the world"

With the rising increase of phone usage, our realities could be faced with major consequences if we do not combat these problems. The solution is to work with our tech instead of against it. At this point, there is no way to prevent people from using their phones. We can try to design things or shift designs so that they are more humane and healthy for the majority.

Design Suggestions

There are already apps that exist that promote physical health. There are fitness apps, wellness apps, etc. There is virtual reality and interactive apps/video games that force you to move your body. Emphasis and continuation of these are important, since we are seemingly permanently sucked into technology regarding our everyday lives.

Regarding eye strain, there are blue light glasses and even screen protectors that can help against harmful blue light. Little tools like these can prevent difficulty sleeping and worsening eyes.

Using our phones or laptops will and do harm our posture. Perhaps taking a step back and making sure schools/public spaces have adequate seating for fixing posture would be a good idea.

Mental health

Our phones have huge impacts on our mental health. They are addictive, so we become sucked in and lose touch with the reality around us which in turn can cause depression, stress, anxiety, and a lack of connection with our friends and families. From there it spirals. If we spend more times with our phones, and less time with the people around us, we become isolated, we negatively impact the relationships in our lives which in turn affects how we see ourselves. Our social skills deplete, and we are less self sufficient.

With children, there is an early lack of attention, whether that be in school, at home, or with friends. Creativity is suffocated, sleep quality depletes, academic performance drops, etc. For Gen Z these are all dropping; getting license, taking risks, going on dates/romantic interactions.

We are training this new generation (gen z) when we are uncomfortable, or lonely, uncertain, afraid.. We have a digital pacifier for ourselves.. That is atrophying our own ability to do that.

FOMO is also negatively impacting our society. The use of social media apps allows us to scroll through people with "better" bodies than us, nicer cars, better clothes, nicer houses, or even people going on seemingly amazing adventures. This causes us to compare ourselves constantly, which is extremely unhealthy! Around 2010 and 2011 the number of girls who harm themselves or have been admitted to hospital was up 62% for older teen girls, up 189% for preteen girls. These numbers are nearly triple the same for suicide.

"There was a correlation between Social communication use and excessive use of smartphones. FOMO mediated the relationships between anxiety and depression with problematic smartphone use (24, 34). Excessive smartphone use has been associated with social comparisons on social networking sites and perceived stress".

Design Suggestions

Social media has become more than just sharing harmless photos or updates with your friends. It has become a race to get the most follows, the most likes, to be the best looking, the most aesthetic, etc.

In a perfect world, we take multiple steps back from where we are now. Apps like Instagram have become incredibly over saturated. During this semester, we talked a lot about how social media apps can't fix themselves because it will cost too much, despite knowing they are wrong and harming society.

Perhaps a solution is creating different kinds of social media apps that lessen harmful affects on people. Apps like BeReal have attempted this. There will always be negative aspects of social media apps, whether that be created by us or the people who made the apps. Small changes can lessen impacts, however. Like the removal of follower/like counts, perhaps the removal of sharing "body checks" or faces all together. Maybe we need to emphasize creativity, photography, aesthetics, and community instead of constantly trying to be the best and most impressive.

AI & Data Mining & Surveillance

AI has been trained to gather unnecessarily large amounts of user data, tracking clicks, scrolls, and locations to understand users' habits and advertise effectively. In addition to data mining to gain clicks, AI is trained to show users what they want to see and what will grab their attention. This programming prioritizes entertaining stories over truthful ones, spreading misleading information and promoting division. (Jones K., Challenges of Ai) If you go to Google and type climate change is, you will see different results based on where you live and your interests. We each have our own Truman Show, we accept the reality of the world presented to us. Overtime when everyone is given a different set of facts, you have the false sense that everyone agrees with you (because the feed says so) and once you're in that state, your easily manipulated.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” - Arthur Clarke

These companies sell certainty, certainty that the advertisement will be successful. To get this certainty they use data, surveillance capitalism. Everything is recorded and sold, what image you stop and look at in your feed, how long you look at it. They know when you're lonely, depressed, looking at pictures of your ex, even if you're an introvert or extrovert. This information is fed into systems that are constantly making better predictions of what’re we’re going to do and who we are. These platforms take our data, give it to these models that make predictions and whichever model is the best wins. Wins most of our attention, therefore the most money from advertisers. There are three goals on these platforms; engagement, keep people scrolling, growth, have people invite friends and family, and advertisements, making as much money as possible. Improving and upgrading the lives of their users is not a priority. (Shoshana Zuboff, Social Dilemma)

Fake news on Twitter spreads 6x faster than true news

Design Suggestions

If we continue down this path we will destroy our civilization through willful ignorance. Failing to meet climate change, degrade the world's democracies, ruin the economy. Tribalism is ruining us, we need to have some shared understanding of reality. AI can’t discern what is true, so AI can’t solve this problem. Instead of giving AI the ability to manipulate personal and political views, the media and tech need to prioritize fact-checking. In addition, it is crucial for citizens to be made aware of the ways AI impacts them and their opinions. Regulating big tech companies and implementing more government oversight will be needed if AI is going to be used effectively in the future to address problems, instead of creating new ones.

Coded Biases

“Algorithms are opinions embedded in code.”

AI's have unknown biases hidden within their programming that harmfully impact lives, whether that's going for a job interview or calculating a credit score. (McIlwain, C., Of course technology perpetuates racism, it was designed that way.) Cameras and AI have been known for their faulty facial-recognition software, a failure to detect people of color, as these variations weren't considered when being designed. Common devices that are triggered with a tap or wave of the hand, such as soap dispensers, faucets, or face tracking cameras, often don't recognize darker skin tones. (Reed, N., Racism in technology: How our tools acquire bias.)

Design Suggestions

Algorithms don't become biased on their own, they're programmed, most often subconsciously, that way. Devices can be reprogrammed to leave prejudices in the past, starting with encouraging and employing more POC in the field as well as diversifying data sets to train AI to recognize more users.

We built these things and we have a responsibility to change them.

Humane Tech has created a guide that can be used to follow best practices to upgrade humans while creating new technological products. To download the guide: