
Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive - gnicholas
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90171307/googles-plan-to-make-tech-less-addictive
======
mcintyre1994
My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook. Google has a giant
attention platform in YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram _are_ attention
platforms. I think YouTube will decline a bit as a result of this, but the
rest of Google - and the data collection of Android are untouched. If people
become less addicted to their phones, they're still going to have their phone
when they go to restaurants and take photos of things on their phones, they're
just not going to post about it on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or
Twitter. Google will still know everything they do now, they'll still be the
default photos experience and search experience and maps experience for
Android, you'll just spend less time in attention apps like YouTube and
Facebook.

The real genius is that it fits Apple's brand _really_ well, way better than
Google's. If they can make this a serious digital wellness campaign, I could
easily see Apple joining in. It won't affect their bottom line and it'll make
them look good. And with that, both mobile platforms and ~all of Facebook's
user base get nudges to become less addicted to and pay less attention to
Facebook.

~~~
mic47
"Shush" and "Wind Down" are already on Samsung phones, and FB is in good
relations with Samsung (see oculus), so doubt this would be Facebook killer.

Additionally, Facebook already turn down video in newsfeed (it decreased time-
spent), and changed goals to 'meaningful social interactions'. Long term,
being useful is more important than grabbing attention (and FB plays long-term
game). The fact that FB, Instagram, Youtube, are "grabbing attention", is only
byproduct of thinking that time-spent like metrics are good proxies for
usefulness (and they were really easy to optimize), which turns out not to be
true (or at least they don't tell the full story). Hackernews is grabbing my
attentions the most for me, should I blame the ranking model?

Most engineers, managers, designers, ... in these companies are people who
want to build useful stuff, rather than maximizing short term gains for share
holders (additionally none of these companies are paying dividends, so if you
maximize value for share holders, you should play mid to long game). If you
can make these engineers realized that what they are building is harmful, they
will change it.

Disclaimer: I worked at Facebook and it from inside, so have different "trust"
model for these companies, and expectations how they work internally. I don't
believe that there sinister master-plan behind every feature they release,
instead, they are complex organisms with many players that are optimizing for
different goals (sometimes sometimes seemingly opposite).

~~~
izacus
> "Shush" and "Wind Down" are already on Samsung phones, and FB is in good
> relations with Samsung (see oculus), so doubt this would be Facebook killer.

How are they called? (Looking at my S9 and can't find anything similar.)

------
eutectic
Corporation's are made of people and people don't only have the direct
interests of the company in mind.

I don't understand the commenters responding negativepy to these proposals; by
all means be circumspect, but don't criticize a company for making a positive
change just because you think it doesn't go far enough.

~~~
wpietri
Agreed. Plenty of people struggle with the problem they're solving here.
Especially at Google, where they a) think of themselves as a nice, mission-
driven company, and b) they do a lot of user-focused stuff that doesn't
immediately contribute to quarterly revenue, and c) they have a workforce that
can easily switch jobs, there's plenty of reason to think that they're sincere
here.

It's surely true that execs looked at this and made sure the ROI wasn't
blatantly large and negative. And there's definitely another level of analysis
where a lot of good behavior turns out to be useful to the organism, in the
same sense that moms love kids because genes need new meat-robot bodies to run
around in. But that complimentary to your frame of analysis, not contradictory
to it.

~~~
aylmao
Lets be real though. Youtube binge-watching is not a matter of "forgetting" to
take a break. We have clocks— we’ve all been there bingeing and thinking "uh,
when the clock hits XX:00 I’ll stop watching" or "I’ll stop after two more
videos", etc.

Recommended videos are very good though, and always very accessible. There's
always another great, tailored video auto-playing after the one we're in. A
better effort IMO would be to simply stop auto-playing after XX number of
minutes; or even just hide the "recommended videos" section behind a button.

Notifying you you're bingeing while you're bingeing and calling it an effort
in digital well-being is the kind of stuff a team comes up with when they know
doing something to keep people from bingeing is the right thing to do, but
they also don’t want to have those crucial-yet-awkard meetings with the Growth
team downstairs or argue with the Playback Time team in the next building.

~~~
wpietri
Sure. And that's an issue for the YouTube team, but not an issue for the
Android team. It's perfectly possible to me that this happened not for cynical
reasons, but mainly because the Android people were just doing something they
thought good for the user, and nobody powerful was cynical enough to stop them
just to juice short-term metrics for one product among many.

~~~
madeofpalk
Yet the article is titled " _Google 's_ Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive" and
it was the _Google_ CEO who announced this new effort.

~~~
wpietri
Yup. CEOs generally announce things that other people think up and build.

------
dschuetz
It's clearly a contradiction. Companies like Google thrived on addictive
behavior of users online. Now that Google basically _is_ the Internet for
consumers they want to crack down on online and tech addiction? Really?

What I've read in the article means to me that Google will toss away the
responsibility to users by making them aware of their usage patterns. "We told
them they need a break from consuming our apps, but they won't listen!
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯" Well, good luck with that, I guess? Consumers will buy anything,
even that joke about "making consumer tech less consume-ry".

~~~
mseebach
It's only a contradiction if you think short term. Long term, it's clearly in
Google's interest to engender sustainable consumption. People who are
comfortable with the role their smartphones play in their lives are much more
valuable consumers than addicts who are apprehensive over it. They are also
much less likely to seek radical action which may damage Google in hard to
predict ways.

~~~
teddyh
It has not, historically, been in the nature of companies to think or act in
the long term. People inside companies have incentives to bring short term
profits, while long term profits benefits only the company as a whole, not any
individual internal actor who may be positioned to make them happen.
Therefore, they don’t happen, and large organizations basically always act
only in the short term.

~~~
thousandautumns
This isn’t true. There are many companies that make long term decisions at the
expense of short term value. The reason it doesn’t feel that way is because
those are the kinds of moves and companies that tend to fly under the radar,
while short term blockbuster moves get trotted out as examples more often
because the consequences, good or bad, tend to be more of a spectacle.

------
gant
If Google really wanted to help here, why don't they just, you know, make
every part of YouTube less optimised for maximum view time. Remove autoplay,
turn down the recommendations. Nah, we're gonna throw some optional, possibly
ineffective shit into our mobile OS instead so we can say we did something.

~~~
yellow_postit
Those features you listed seem like quite useful ones for day to day usage.
Many things won’t have a bright line “this makes the product useful” vs. “this
makes the product addictive” feature classification.

~~~
paulddraper
> Many things won’t have a bright line “

Agreed.

Though how often have you found autoplay by default makes YouTube useful?

~~~
remir
For multi-parts videos?

~~~
paulddraper
Multi-part videos exist? Just...why?

Youtube videos are up to 12 hours.

That's reminiscent of the good ol' VCR days.

~~~
remir
Because for certain things, it's better to split the content on multiple
parts. For example, I was watching a series of videos on Windows Server
administration and the content was split into multiple parts and it made
sense.

~~~
gant
Still, why does YT need to default to autoplay on every time I load a watch
page?

~~~
remir
"User engagement"

------
0xBA5ED
The first two features are nice, but the cynical side of me thinks this is all
about the third feature. They will simultaneously appear concerned and
helpful, easing the growing negative sentiment against them while introducing
even more pervasive tracking.

~~~
gnicholas
I’m not on Android so I’m not familiar with the level of tracking that
currently exists, but can’t they track this usage data already, even if
they’re not showing users the results right now?

My understanding from talking with folks at Apple and Microsoft is that they
track time spent in various apps/applications so they know what is popular
with users. Is Android different?

~~~
scarface74
Yes. I was shocked when I logged into my dad's Google account that Google
recorded every app that he opened and closed and the times.

------
jadedhacker
I am feeling cynical because none of the announcements mentioned notifications
or random reward content. Nor am I familiar with research that shows grayscale
reduces addictiveness.

I like the put down gesture silencing phones, but there's two things wrong
with it. 1) it encourages you to leave the phone easily accessible instead of
turning it off 2) its exactly the kind of corporate move to give just enough
control to the individual to make it seem like Google's business model is that
person's own moral failings.

~~~
KirinDave
Well, look I don't have data at google scale but my mobile scale info suggests
_people do not turn their phones off and they won 't._

You might say, "You should" and I'll say, "And if my family needs to get ahold
of me for some emergency? Should I just ignore them calling about some
emergency with my three year old daughter for dubious performative gestures?"

As for 2, once can imagine a world where Google doesn't _want_ to have such
revenue concentration in ads. Destroying the industry as they leave it is not
a bad idea, if it gets them where they need to be. But of course, I'm
skeptical.

~~~
gkop
Your response advances parent commenter’s point. Addicted people come up with
excuses why they can’t stop. If you accept that you’re addicted and decide to
end it, you will default to a 90s technology lifestyle and allow technology
into your life exactly when you want it. Google’s business would be
tremendously damaged if people actually broke the addiction, so they are
making superficial product changes that keep us high-functioning addicts.

~~~
KirinDave
> If you accept that you’re addicted and decide to end it, you will default to
> a 90s technology lifestyle and allow technology into your life exactly when
> you want it.

This axiomatically assumes it's better or that a pejorative notion of
"addiction" is bad. You raising this isn't some kind of brilliant metapoint,
it's circular. "You disagree with them and therefore _that proves the point!_
" Hrmm.

I think there are pros and cons to pervasive mobile use. For example: it's
realistic for me to run an entirely remote software team. Everyone gets more
time with their families, but we can all adequately respond when problems
exist. Because of my ability to respond, I spend more time with my daughter
than my family _ever_ did, and even when I'm away I can be engaged with her in
a way that she recognizes and appreciates. Again, _no one else my family_ had
this option in your pastoral 90s. I never saw my family; they were chained to
work.

And in the 90s, my requirements for technology to support myself sequestered
me from society. I can realistically do my job, take a lunch break and meet
friends, and simply resume work wherever that ends. I could not do that
before. I see mobile sturation as freedom from being cloistered by my career
and interests.

So maybe, just maybe, there are arguments and experiences to consider beyond a
feral distaste for google?

------
TeMPOraL
I like all the 3 features mentioned, good they're coming. They really should
have been something implementable as an app though. I guess I'll get to test
them in 2 or 3 years.

(Yeah, this is annoying - Android versions come out really fast, but their
support in most phones lags couple of years, even if you just throw away your
current one and go buy a flagship.)

~~~
siempohn
Check out [http://www.getsiempo.com](http://www.getsiempo.com) \- we built a
launcher that incorporates this thinking throughout the UI. We'd love feedback
on the beta!

~~~
TeMPOraL
Thanks! I will play with this.

Based on the website and the PlayStore video, I already love two of your
ideas: unbranded icons and batching notifications. Not sure if the former
might have much productivity or health impact, but it sure as hell makes the
interface looks nicer.

EDIT: I saw a comment on PlayStore about opt-out telemetry in your product.
Could you elaborate on exactly what kind of data you're sending? Or do I have
to packet-trace it myself?

~~~
siempohn
Awesome!

Most of what we collect is aggregated & anonymous. Our privacy policy explains
the categories of information that we collect and how we use it. Within each
category, we collect too many data points to create an itemized list. For
example, for users who haven’t opted-out, we collect aggregated & anonymous
event logs for every tap on every screen within the Siempo launcher. However,
we could offer to answer any specific questions. Anyone is welcome to do there
own packet trace, but that won’t help them understand what is anonymous and
what isn’t.

------
mark_l_watson
Google is not the only company that is trying to optimize both profits and
user experience/benefits, that is a priority where I work also.

I have been trying to live in Apple’s walled garden because they are more of a
privacy company. But, I periodically turn Google Assistant, Google Maps, and
Gmail on - largely turning my iPhone temporarily into a Google device as far
as tracking goes. I do this when travelling or when I need the better ‘AI’
experience that Google provides. Google Assistant really is very useful, and
sometimes turning over my life event data is worth it.

------
amelius
How about an option where a parent controls during what times the phone has a
data connection?

~~~
visarga
I tried that and my kid hacked the phone (and PC). So now I just take the
keyboard in the evening and return it the next day. I think Google and Apple
have an opposing interest to parents.

------
sloxy
Having better default notifications on Android would be a start. Everything
off(bar calls & messages) unless turned on by user.

every app now wants to notify you about everything.. so every phone i get, i
need to go in and turn off notifications for everything bar calls & text
messages.

Pity they don't sync your preferences when you get a new phone.

~~~
siempohn
Try the Siempo launcher - only product that lets you batch notifications.

------
ddtaylor
I have a similar feeling about this to how Comcast/Xfinity and Disney promote
their services to help reduce screen time for kids. It's hogwash, since they
are actively trying everything (including AI) to maximize screen time / watch
time and any other metric. Their efforts seem token.

------
Ldorigo
"It will even display what you did inside various apps–and on this front,
third- party developers will be able to specify trackable metrics inside their
software."

Well, that sounds like a totally disinterested move that has nothing to do
with Google's strive to track every single thing you do.

------
Toine
Goold old "create the problem and the solution"

~~~
speedplane
Not quite, I think the more accurate rephrasing would be maximize profits,
maximize profits, maximize profits. That plus a lot of other employee and
customer stuff you that wan to keep their jobs.

It's good tech companies are pushing for open access.

------
ThomPete
Which just means that someone else will step in. People will move towards
where they needs are met. People dont want the addiction but they want what
they are addicted to and you can't just put the genie back in the bottle
again.

I view this is a political / strategic positioning to guard against
legislation I don't see it having any real effect or being of any significance
just as I don't consider addiction the fault of clever algorithms but rather
human nature. Instagram is probably the best example of that. It's the one
considered to pushing most people into depression yet it's mostly based around
people sharing images not clever algorithms (yes I know they use algorithms on
instagram)

~~~
aylmao
> _Which just means that someone else will step in. People will move towards
> where they needs are met. People dont want the addiction but they want what
> they are addicted to and you can 't just put the genie back in the bottle
> again._

You're not wrong, but this is more nuanced, because it's the moral scapegoat
many use when addressing this issue.

Someone at Youtube trying to optimize for watch time might be aware that
making people watch more videos might not the best thing to do. Yet, if it's
not Youtube "someone else will step in"\-- people will always watch more
videos no? Might as well be us who make money out of it.

~~~
ThomPete
Aren't you repeating what I said or am I missing something?

------
ghostcluster
I am inherently suspicious of these types of nanny-tech initiatives. Nintendo
did something similar recently in many of their games — warning you that
you've been playing for X amount of time, mayba take a break? — and it came
off very grating and presumptive, to the point that there were many popular
memes created to make fun of it.

It's hard to do these types of warnings with a naive implementation because
the system doesn't know the context in hich you are using the progress, it can
only guess, and when it guesses wrong, it leaves a bad impression.

Maybe Google can do a better job with its execution, and maybe making it 'opt-
in' will solve that disconnect. I guess we'll find out.

~~~
bitL
> warning you that you've been playing for X amount of time, mayba take a
> break?

You've been playing /r/outside for too long. Maybe take a break?

------
baxtr
Regardless of how serious google is about this (their main customers are
advertisers not android users), I don’t find the measures convincing

\- shush: if you place your phone on the table you’ll pick it up from time to
time anyways, it won’t be out of sight

\- colors: I’ve turned my smartphone screen B&W, I haven’t noticed a big
difference yet, but maybe there is some research out there

\- monitoring: I installed a monitor app a while back. While I was observing
my usage in the beginning regularly, today, I just don’t care about the
numbers anymore

I highly doubt that these measures will be effective

~~~
cromwellian
They don't have to be effective on you, if they are effective on even a small
percent, it might be worth it.

We hear this every time there's a new public safety campaign: Drunk driving,
seat belts, texting and driving, safe sex, stop smoking, gun safety, etc

Every single time, the cry is "but but, this won't solve all the problems, it
won't work on everyone." But we have reduced drunk driving deaths, we have
reduced highway deaths with mandatory seat belts and airbags, we have lowered
the spread of STDs.

Sure, you can give people a label listing calories and tell them to eat
healthy and many won't. But an increasing percentage of people are becoming
more aware, and awareness is really the first step.

There's way too much cynicism, and way too much, I dunno, either alpha-male
macho behavior that chafes at being told to eat your Brussels Sprouts, but
being nudged by your phone to stop using it once in a while isn't a bad idea.

Something has to break people out of their skinner box once in a while,
besides hunger or bankruptcy.

~~~
Flenser
This is a good point, and the people who this will help most are probably
driving a lot of notifications to their friends, so this will help their
friends too.

------
ducttape12
Kind of like how soda companies encourage people to exercise. They don't want
you to stop buying their product, but cut back just enough to stop people
complaining.

------
kazinator
I already hate every minute of using Android, so they have made strides in
that direction already for some time.

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teknopaul
I'd have to dig it out, but I remember reading an article that showed that
just having phones on the table seriously interfered with ones ability to
follow a conversation. I insist on removing phones from sight when eating
since.

I wonder if the people that implemented this face down feature know that?

------
jacksmith21006
I do not agree with any of this. It is a personal choice. I am old and spent
much of my day behind a screen my entire life. Do not need anyone to tell me
to take a step away.

Google really just needs to do their own thing and stop listening to all the
chatter about this and that.

~~~
Ensorceled
This is exactly like moderate drinker complaining about AA programs, R.I.D.E.
stops[1] and Smart Serve[2].

It's not about you. Stop humble bragging about your lack of an addictive
personality and simply move on.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduce_Impaired_Driving_Everyw...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduce_Impaired_Driving_Everywhere)

[2] [https://www.smartserve.ca/](https://www.smartserve.ca/)

------
Omnus
"We know our smartphones are making us unhappy." [link to an article
describing a study that put people in a contrived, artificially distracting
situation and then pointed out that they enjoyed their time less]

Is that the best evidence you have? Because it's crap.

------
agumonkey
Interesting to watch tech trying to negative feedback itself :)

------
maelito
What about a warning telling us to look away from the phone every 20 minutes
of intense use (eyes staring at the screen continuously) ?

~~~
bitL
That would be so awesome when you are reading some scientific paper for
university and have to focus! "Hey, you are reading too much, get off! Phone
locked for the next 5 minutes!"

------
hedora
Oddly enough, this was an explicit goal of windows phone 8, and they largely
succeeded. It was fantastic.

------
BenoitP
A great move for Google would be to treat notifications in Android as Google
Now cards; i.e have some machine learn if it is relevant content. Observing if
the user has opened the notification, and also offer more feedback options in
the long press menu.

IMHO, best results would be obtained by letting the apps emit their own
feature vectors to be fed to the learner. Google could aggregate these among
all their users. App creators would learn to provide features that actually
inform of a kind of proposed interaction. Failing to do so would boot them out
of this users' "attention market".

I receive about 20 useless facebook notification for a relevant one (mainly
when someone is talking to me in the fb chat). Facebook could clearly publish
the following along to the learner with each notification:

* is it a chat message?

* is it from someone I have talked to recently?

* is it from a cluster of users that talks to each other frequently that I am part of

* a representation of the cited cluster above

* location of the content (with some additional feature engineering from the phone, who knows if I've been there previously)

* it is a photo/video/text?

* a doc2vec vector if it is text content

* an image embedding if it is a photo

etc.

I believe this could reduce the amount of notifications by a solid order of
magnitude, while not lowering the usefulness value too much. We would suffer
way less hijacking, and reduce our addiction of the mindless novelty-seeking
kind.

------
fallingfrog
In other news, Bethesda has recently announced an initiative to make its games
less fun..

------
gaius
Plans are meaningless - I will believe it when I see Google explaining to
their shareholders that they plan to systematically reduce the value of the
company. Maximising time spent online in front of ads is literally their
entire business!

------
kunthar
personally waiting for librem5 phones. currently using miui 9 with mi6 which
is giving advanced control to user preventing from data sucking corps.

------
ahmedalsudani
This is a good time to reread one of pg’s essays
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

------
mvaliente2001
I would swear that they had years doing this. After using gmail or android for
five minutes, I want to throw the devices out of the window.

------
golemotron
In other news, McDonald's introduces air-locks between the kitchen and the
counter to decrease scent-induced appetite.

------
Froyoh
"Less addictive" = more dependent on Google.

~~~
Qwertie
How so?

------
reificator
> _Big Pharma 's Plan to Make Prescription Drugs Less Addictive_

> _Local Heroin Dealers ' Plan to Make Heroin Less Addictive_

> _Coca Cola 's Plan to Make Soda Less Addictive_

LGTM.

~~~
Qwertie
Most of googles products are not based on addiction. You use google search
because you have to find something. You don't spend hours randomly browsing
search results. Youtube will take a hit from this but the rest of google is
not an addiction business.

~~~
reificator
Most of Google's revenue is based on addiction. You see more ads the longer
you use the internet.

~~~
collyw
I spend a large amount of time on the internet, but I use duck duck go and
have ad blockers turned on. When I turn off add blockers it makes me want to
spend less time on the internet.

------
romanovcode
This is hilarious. Reminds of what tobacco companies tried to push 20-or-so
years ago!

------
bitL
They already did that by introducing Material Design. Its blandness, huge
whitespaces, inability to recognize clickable objects are so off-putting that
I ran away from Android already and interact with it only when I have to and
with variable doses of cognitive pain.

Thanks Google for preventing me from becoming a smartphone addict by design!

