Giving Compass' Take:

• Tech industry insiders founded the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology who are launching the Truth About Tech Campaign which is a push for tech companies and children to consume and sell technology more responsibly. 

• Will tech companies make a shift in their marketing if it cuts into their profits? How ingrained is technology in our society? Will it be difficult for kids to change how they interact with tech?

• Read about how students are introducing seniors to new technology like VR. 

A group of ex-insiders from the tech industry wants to curb the harm, even harness the power of digital media for good. In 2013, they founded the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology understanding that smartphones are designed to capture and keep attention. Most people don’t understand how they are being manipulated by their smartphones. The CHT was created to help them recognize and resist unhealthy habits often fostered by tech design.

Co-founder Tristan Harris, an ex-Google employee who once held the title of design ethicist and now serves as CHT’s executive director, frames it as a battle nothing less than the most important issue facing the modern world.

In February, CHT partnered with Common Sense Media, an organization that advocates on behalf of children growing up in the digital world, to launch the Truth About Tech campaign. It calls for a shift in values for tech companies—a conscious choice to act in the best interests of children even if that results in a decrease in profits.

Colby Zintl, Common Sense’s vice president of external affairs sees the Truth About Tech campaign as having three goals. The first is public awareness. The second goal is to have this kind of awareness taught in schools. “We want to graduate a new generation of people who think critically and behave responsibly online. Truth About Tech’s third goal is to encourage further research on the subject, preferably funded partly by tech companies themselves.

Read the full article about tech addiction by Miles Schneiderman at YES! Magazine