Tech companies are under pressure to draw attention Digital addiction. During a recent House committee hearing on the dangers of social media, former Facebook executive Tim Kendall told Congress that the company deliberately builds its product this way. Addictive As cigarettes.
Kendall, CEO of Time-Management Application Moment and former director of monetization for Facebook, said at a hearing by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce: “Tobacco companies initially only wanted to make nicotine stronger. And so they added sugar and menthol to cigarettes so you can stop smoking in your lungs for a long time. On Facebook, we added status updates, photo tagging and likes. “
In an interview on CBSN, Kendall told CBS News’ Lana Zak that it all boils down to the social media giant’s ad-based business model, with “the goal of getting more people to pay attention to your product and more time each day.”
“So what happened is you have an advertising business model that is just constantly evolving, always connected to more intelligent technology, and that combination is really powerful,” Kendall said. “The product he’s leading is basically addictive for people, and it’s raising all the questions of mental health, and I think it’s degrading aspects of society.”
While it’s nothing new for users to attack each other on social media, Kendall believes that social media sites break people down very quickly.
“In a very short time, we have lost our collective understanding – unfortunately, I fear we are pushing ourselves to the brink of civil war,” he said during the hearing.
With just over a month to go until election day, there are serious concerns about Facebook’s role in spreading Political misinformation. Kendall believes social media algorithms are strengthening users ’own worldviews, and pulling people from each other.
“I just don’t trust the algorithm. I don’t think the algorithm is working in our best interest as an individual or a society because the algorithm wants to fracture us; it wants to polarize us, not because it has a personality or an opinion. , But it’s designed for me to spend more time every day. “
This Nationwide epidemic of corona virus People have been forced to cancel many activities they enjoyed, and many have given up extra time to browse their friends’ feeds. 20-30% is used anywhere on social media during epidemics developed by the Moment app, but Kendall said the big issue is how long the difference is between people Think They are included with platforms like Facebook, and Reality.
“Most people use their phones four and a half hours a day, on average.” “If you ask the same group how many hours their phone takes, they think they use it two hours a day. So there’s a complete disconnect between vision and reality.”
The former Facebook executive said he doesn’t believe social media companies have done enough to eradicate tech addiction that has harmed people’s mental health.
“There’s really clear data that the use of social media is associated with depression, it’s related to anxiety, and I just don’t know if Facebook has taken full responsibility for it and really tried to work against it.”
CBS News reached out to Facebook for comment in response to Kendall’s testimony, but has not yet heard back.
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