Are using technology to complete to compete for our attention which they then sell to advertisers but heres a question from someone that has worked on television for most of her life hasnt been doing the same thing for decades now i mean weve heard the same arguments against t. V. Ads brainwashing its manipulating break it throw it out isnt social media just. New sort of t. V. Yeah i think its a great question there are a couple things that id say one is that t. V. Is just not as good at being is addictive as social media and thats for thats for a couple reasons one is not interactive. And 2 is its not personalized to us right the content that i see on t. V. Is not about my social world it doesnt it doesnt reflect. My popularity and my standing it doesnt it doesnt allow me to compare myself to other friends or colleagues in the way that social media does so social media really allows me it really it really preys on a bunch of things in kind of my animal brain that really get me addicted you know for just hard data you know the fiftys. People watched about 4 hours of t. V. A day and now that stat on average at least in the United States is about the same its about 4 hours. Just to show that the difference with social media in 2010 people spent 12 and a half minutes per day on social media and today they spend 2 and a half hours per day and so its gone up 10 times in 10 years per person well the number of people using social media has grown from about 500000000 to 3000000000 people so its its explosive in in that sense and its addictive and. You know the data the Mental Health data on t. V. Just looks very different than and social media just in terms of the impact that social media usage has on my Mental Wellbeing we know that it makes me depressed and we know that it makes me anxious. Youre saying that the average downer is 2 and a half hours i wish it was that low in my case actually its much more than that 2 and a half hours well thats nothing compared to what happens to me now like we agree right that this sort of a concept of catching my attention and being by manipulating is really an old concept an old thread but really on steroids like its sort of sitting right absolutely i mean i think that. You know probably Artificial Intelligence in fact is already doing this with with Netflix Netflix not only are there recommendations powered by Artificial Intelligence but some of the program e some of the Show Development in creation is now being powered by data that they have about how you and i watch their shows and what what appeals to us and so i think its kind of a matter of time before Traditional Television starts becoming so personalized it starts to suck our attention and in those sorts of ways i think traditional t. V. Just isnt nearly as good. As social media is kind of stealing our attention. You mentioned before we started this interview about america being poly arise like never before and i said well the world is poller america heres the thing you also said a political consequences of social media are scary that the way this goes not could lead to a civil war but we once again im going to bring up the traditional media like fox news has been around so. 1996 and there was no facebook or you tube and the media was already poller raising the landscape because i think style sells in the media more blood to more ratings and moderation in objected they just dont interest people you know that they dont bring grading so why are we saying that Tech Companies need to change but were ok with what like fox and imus embassy destroying journalism in america and completely paul rising the country as well yeah i think that that the beginning of all of this was cable t. V. It was in 1906 when fox and c. N. N. And s m s n b c started fracturing us into different groups that had a different set of facts. I think what were what were saying is that social media is just that on steroids because instead of there being 3 versions of the truth in United States there are 100000000 versions of the truth i mean you see this you see this even on the left or on the right which is that republicans cant even align and neither can democrats right theyre completely fractured and part of the reason that theyre fractured is that the facts set there is not in they talk about this in the film we dont theres no concept anymore of of truths theres no concept of a shared truth but i dont. I think i am i blame i blame cable t. V. This for starting this whole big in terms of polarization so i think youre right that that is a problem social media by virtue of the technology in the ability to make to to create your own c. N. N. Right you know your personal news Network Makes it even worse. But im trying to pinpoint something here help me out because im talking about whether we should be targeting in this case. Tech giants or something more narrow and particular for instance weve heard accusations in facebook on the date offline ethnic cleansing in myanmar right like an Old FashionedRadio Program has funded as legit graver genocide in rwanda for instance and with broadcasters being held responsible not the Radio Technology what is the argument for treating the Tech Companies of today differently you know what i mean. Well the argument in the United States and i testified in front of congress about this very issue the army United States back in 1906 around the same time coincidentally that cable was you know fracturing us there is a theres a law called section 230. 00 and what it does is it allows these Tech Companies to propagate and publish any content they want and theyre not liable for its simply freedom of freedom of information decency act. I may be getting that name wrong but its section 230 and that the testimony that i gave basically suggested that that needs to be made to look at 230 and the need to amend to 30 because youre right news organizations are liable. If you Say Something thats you know is you know libel factually incorrect etc you you have a liability you are held accountable if anyone can say anything and anyone can propagate anything thats popular in inflammatory. We can create some really serious societal problems. Here is that question turned from the other side for instance to cocreator of the Facebook Like button tells us in the silm that his team just wanted to create something that will be good that would will foster good will enable people to reassure each other and those who didnt expect teenage depression or the like addiction to come out of it right but it decision is being like the one way or another and once again nothing to do with instagram its human nature right. So im just wondering are we start of scapegoating the big tech because were just too embarrassed to admit that our behavior is ugly at times are just blaming our ages old vanity and facebook yeah. I think its a good i think its a good point i mean my takeaway from the film is is twofold one is that maybe 3 feel the Companies Need to take more responsibility and accountability that governments may need to step in if they dont do that quickly enough if in we as individuals. Are responsible to were making choices that are not in our best interests and weve lost control of our phones and we need it for a number of the reasons that you mentioned right weve lost control of our phones because weve let them prey on our vanity our need our need to be right our need for recognition our need for other people to inflate our reputation all of these things are sort of human tendencies that on social media get really tapped into and we have we have personal responsibility to make i think different choices if we conclude that these things have taken over a lives in the same way that i response ability if i drink too much to figure out a path to get that back in control because i dont like the consequences its creating in my life i think the same the same is true of cigarettes the same is true of of eating too much sugar so i agree with you i dont think i think its silly and i dont agree with people who just say look at some my fault social Media Company there theyre the ones are making me pick this thing up to talk about cigarettes or a facebook set of lunches ation and youve admitted in the documentary that you helped make facebook as addictive as cigarettes that sounds quote so sunday is it a figure of speech or are those 2 addictions and theyre driven by same processes in a brain the point that i was trying to make is just that theres a theres a theres a threshold at which big tobacco realised what they were doing. And that they continued to do it they continued to put more and more things into cigarettes that made them more addictive and made me want to smoke more of them and the point im trying to make is that social media and in particular these artificially intelligent algorithms are doing the same thing they are moving along looking for new additives to inject into social media so that you and i want to use it more because the algorithms being told get more of tims attention tomorrow and then he goes off and thinks cant do that week he spent 2 and a half hours on it yesterday how can we get him to spend 3 hours on it today and sort of oil that i was making was that these algorithms are going off and finding new additives like the Cigarette Companies used to do right it started with if we were wine 10 years ago it started with as i said earlier popularity in comparison and now were in a different realm of misinformation Conspiracy Theory polarized content right were were stepping up the ladder of things that. Really trigger any gauge the most primal part of my brain so that i spend more time and im more engaged to take a short break right now when were back well continue talking to team kandel former facebook director online to zation expresident of contrasts and the c ls moment app stay with us. L. Look forward to talking to you all that technology should work for people. I robot must obey the orders given by human beings except where such orders to conflict with the 1st law show your identification for should be very careful about Artificial Intelligence and the point of use the is to create trust ever the shia. Conflict take on various chopping with Artificial Intelligence will some of the demons. Of the obamas protect its own existence is only exist. If. The us economy was booming growing numbers of people were made homeless. You can work 40 hours in a week and still not have enough to get housing everybody believes america still is the land of opportunity the reality of it is that were not financially equality and the lack of Affordable Housing for a living minimum wage gave many people no choice though theres been a problem with the city the law has turned their backs on and told to stay away oh mr colton concerted effort is no answer because yes that requires resources the most vulnerable are abandoned on the streets to become the invisible comes. Were back with tina kandel former facebook director of lunches aisha next president of contrasts and c. E. O. Of mom and app team so tell me so that we know what are the most sophisticated tills stat keep users on the hill i mean are engineers in a big tech consciously using your scientific knowledge to keep us in gauged. No i i i mean i think part of what is scary is that there really are cumin beings on the other side of of of these services right its really an algorithm thats not very well in my opinion not very well supervised that is being given an instruction which is make him spend more time on the service tomorrow you have this universe of billions of pieces of content that hes got a couple 100 friend of him thats going to get him sucked in and we also have push notifications and we can play with the time of day that we send those push notifications to him and if things get really bad we have his phone number so we can text message him and what really bad i mean he hasnt come back for a few days when i go off a spot for several days or week i get a text message from that was something was something that really tries to pull me back so those are the tracks right its its its and its preying on i mean one of the most effective things that they spoke figured out to 15 years ago was a big censuring email that said hey theres a new photo of you on facebook and uncensored a photo. I dont know why they dont why dont we send you photos i want them to send you the photo because they want you to come come to the service see the photo which by the way 100 percent of people do and then once youre there you stay longer and when you stay longer they can show you more ads and they show you more ads they make more money. You know not so long ago i spoke to father of modern marketing economist cutler i dont know if youve heard of it ellen talked about how commercials are to blame for our growing dissatisfaction with our lives in a way that they see it as the idea that the product theyre offering is what we need and without it our lives are just incomplete is social media working in a same way or are its ways more complex than that. I think its more complex i think it used to work in that way and only along those dimensions which was which was it great they tapped into our natural tendency to compare and thats right i mean that was that was kind of early commercial commercials and and marketing. Look look at your life it could be better if you bought this product. And look thats it thats a very effective way to manipulate someone and change their mind to get them to spend money and now i think its gone even further in that in that its really starting to tap into whether you are right or wrong whether your view of the world is right or wrong whether it in and by the way these services really help convince you that youre right. Because thats good for business and they make you avery at the other side because they put information in front of you that proves that the other side is wrong and its doing the inverse to the other side. And thats whats thats whats thats whats so scary you know i think Tristan Harris is in the film you know recently has said something that i think is really helpful which is lets just imagine that you picked up there for your phone and there were 2 options there was a feed of information. That showed you things it basically validated your worldview busy showed you that you were right there firm to the things that that you believed and then there was another feed that actually challenge to put information in front of you that shall and the views that you helped so if you believe the earth the earth is round in this feed it would actually show you data but that it illustrates how the world might be flat people dont want to read that 2nd feed that 2nd feed is not that engaging people dont want to be told that theyre wrong they want to be validated and so. I think its gone one step further then just you know convincing you that your life is is could be better if you buy a product its almost a further its convincing you that youre right and the other is wrong and not only wrong theyre bad. So another scary thing that i gathered from the documentaries on to her say that despite the fact that you helped architect all those manipulative tills you yourself solve prayed to them yourself what does it mean for the rest of us i mean does that mean that being aware of all those things social media duty is just not enough i think its pretty. I think like a lot of things that are ticked of its not very helpful to know how bad they are. I mean i think 15 or 20 percent of people still smoke and i mean i think the biggest reason people dont smoke now has less to do with the fact that it kills them more to do with the fact that its socially just not acceptable that thats thats at least my experience the United States. And so i dont know that its so helpful necessarily to know that its bad for you in that in the medium to long term what what i think can be really helpful is for everybody and this is how you know we build tools and focus on apps that my new Company Moment is that there are if youre aware sort of 3 things that we say it at moment and the whole idea of moment is were trying to help you get back control of this thing and how you use it the whole idea is basically its to help you develop awareness for how much you spend how much time you spend on your phone most people spend this is an aggregate so this is social media long Everything Else most people spell spend 44 half hours on their phone a day but if you ask all those people most of them say 2 hours so theres a disconnect between reality and perception and pointing that out can be really useful because it shows the loss of control right there is sort of this moment that happens like oh my gosh i really dont have control because im not even correctly perceiving reality and then the 2nd thing that we suggest and this does this in our app moment is just a bunch of ways of tweaking habits. The most useful and basic one and it actually like moves the needle the most in terms of social media usage is dont bring your phone into the room where you sleep just set a rule. Yes or so ok i know that stuff. You dont want to talk to journalists really are but it is this is let us know our audience down on phone yeah all our work is done on cell phone i mean especially now that were all working you know. Online because we dont go to record in person interviews or we dont travel that much to do reports that everythings happening in our sun own i guess i get it by the way like i work on this all day long and i you should see my phone usage especially since this film has come out what so here is c. E. O. Of moment now an app which according to the description of sad helps people build healthier relationships with their phones. So if i delete all social networks from my cell and how will my relationship with it become healthier exactly i mean because you know i can really just check twitter on desktop yeah. Well 1st of all i wouldnt recommend it to lee we dont we dont actually think the leading social media is is realisti