Kicking the tech addiction

Social media changes who we are

- RICHARD HOUSE

Richard House [RH]: Charles, you’ve recently made major changes in your life with regard to tech. It’s tremendous that a young chap like you is taking such a path! What changes have you made?

Charles Carmichael [CC]: I've stopped using both smartphones and social media, and I also try to use the internet as little as possible. I've got an old blackberry classic model, which functions for calls, texts, and as an mp3 player, which I use as my phone. The old blackberry infrastructure has been shut down, making it perfect as a cheap 'dumb' phone.

RH: So what led you to make these changes?

CC: There are quite a few reasons. I could list the common complaints levelled at social media and smartphones: that our mental health, family lives, interpersonal relationships, attention spans, and our ability to make sense out of life itself, are all compromised by them. For me, these are merely symptoms of a deeper problem: that social media sites actually change who we are, in terms of our use of language and way of seeing the world, as a result of how algorithms sponsor particular content.

I find the analogy of a Venus fly trap apt here. The fly lands on the trap looking for food to consume; the plant smells as if it'll offer it. At some imperceptible moment, however, the consumer becomes the consumed, and the fly is eaten by the plant.

RH: Wow! Say more about these technologies changing who we are, Charles?