Electrocutie om van Facebookverslaving af te komen

MIT-studenten Robert R. Morris, Dan McDuff vonden dat diensten als Facebook hen teveel afleidden van het realiseren van hun dissertaties. Als oplossing bedachten zij Pavlov Poke, een toepassing die de gebruiker een schok geeft wanneer het gebruik van bijvoorbeeld Facebook de perken te buiten gaat. Pavlov Poke bestaat uit vier componenten:

• UI Inspector: You need something to monitor computer application usage. We use the Mac’s UI Inspector.
• Processing Code: If a distracting site is visited too frequently, a Processing script produces an on-screen alert.
• Arduino: An Arduino is connected via USB to the computer. When a shock is triggered, the Arduino activates a relay and starts the shock circuit. If you want more info on how to build a shock circuit, check out this fine tutorial.
• Electrodes: Conductive metal strips are placed on the keypad. When the Arduino relay is triggered, a current is sent through the strips and through palm of your hand. Ouch!!!

Wanneer een schok niet helemaal je ding is hebben Morris en McDuff overigens ook een oplossing bedacht waarbij je via Amazon Mechanical Turk een telefoontje krijgt waarin een veeg uit de pan je deel is.

Hieronder de volledige motivatie die het tweetal had om met het project te beginnen.

While this project is intended to be a joke, we believe a serious discussion is needed about how communication technologies are designed.

Technologies like Facebook are addictive by design. According to comScore, Facebook users spend an average of 400 minutes per month on the site. A recent study from the University of Chicago suggests that Facebook and Twitter are more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol. Further, there is increasing evidence to suggest that, over time, Facebook use reduces subjective well-being. Would you still use Facebook if you knew it made you unhappy? Probably, if you’re addicted to it.

All too often, people assume they use a given technology because they want to and because it is in their best self-interest. Unfortunately, this assumption does not align with how these technologies are designed. Sites like Facebook are crafted on the basis of something called engagement metrics, which measure the number of daily active users, the time people spend on the site, etc. Unfortunately, these metrics are not designed to assess well-being. A product can have incredibly high engagement metrics, and yet be extremely bad for its users (cigarettes, for example).

One approach is to build devices like ‘Pavlov Poke’ to help eliminate the online habits we already have. Another, perhaps more enduring approach, is to change the norms around how technologies are adopted. If a technology appears especially sticky, users should proceed with caution and take pains to assess how the technology affects their mood over time. New innovations around experience sampling could help facilitate this form of affective self-discovery.

Unfortunately, as new technologies become more mobile, they become harder and harder to resist. Indeed, the more ubiquitous and accessible the technology, the more addictive it can become. This is why Facebook built Facebook Home. This is why extra caution should be given to technologies built for devices like Google Glass. Personally, I don’t want to try Glass until I know I can manage its potentially addictive properties. The last thing I want is to have to build a shock device that’s hooked up around my eyeballs. Eek!