In the last few weeks, a new chapter begun may have begun. Apple CEO Tim Cook said
“If you’re looking at a phone more than someone’s eyes, you’re doing the wrong thing.”
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez went so far as to leave Facebook, one of the platforms that helped her rise and get elected, stating
“Social media poses a public health risk to everybody.”
Twitter cofounder and former CEO Ev Williams said
“Our attention has been hijacked and it has primarily been hijacked by advertising-driven business models that are not driven to make us more wise.”
Then the person likely more responsible than any for the current digital social movement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, said last week
“The Future is private”
wanting to envision a new Facebook.
While the old chapter had some wonderful aspects to it, including many open sharing platforms that have helped connect people in incredible ways, the question for this next chapter is
“How can technology work with instead of against our attention?”
The companies that do this best will be the predominant platforms of this next chapter. There will be race not to more time spent, but to quality time that supports our entire life.
Yet even as the tech companies shift to work with our attention more, the objective is still to wake up, to live more presently – not in the past and not too far in the future which will undoubtedly become more unsettling. Sitting silently with ourselves, connecting to others, understanding what holds us back. It’s something no person or app can do for us.
Wisdom 2.0