WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

You’ve heard it before: Social media is addictive and manipulative and rewiring your brain every day. But the truth is, it is possible to break out of the tech cage, if you subtract the hyperbole and induce incremental changes. Going cold turkey never worked for anyone

- RAJIV MAKHNI

Steve Jobs was doing what he did best. Casting a spell on the audience. It was 2010 and Jobs was presenting the iPad as the ultimate tool for watching movies, typing an email, listening to music, browsing the internet and using apps. The only thing that Jobs didn’t tell the audience was that he would never allow his own children to use an iPad.

As we know now, Jobs wasn’t alone in limiting screen time at home. Many other global tech leaders – from Bill Gates to Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian; Evan Williams of Twitter to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook – have enforced similar rules at home. What is it that has made all these technocrats build devices and services that the world uses every day, and yet, they have a hands-off policy for their own family and children? Because they’ve all known, first hand, the seductive dangers of their products.

For years, tech insiders, researchers and refuseniks have been warning us about what social networks are doing to our brains. Social media is addictive. The lure of the smartphone is irresistible. If it’s free, then you’re the product. You’ve heard enough of these statements. You’ve seen the proof. Yet, we continue to pick up our phones 200 times a day and refresh Instagram even if we checked it just ten seconds ago.