0:05 sixty minutes rewind have you ever
0:07 wondered if all those people you see
0:09 staring intently at their smartphones
0:11 nearly everywhere and at all times are
0:14 addicted to them according to a former
0:16 Google product manager you're about to
0:19 hear from Silicon Valley is engineering
0:22 your phone apps and social media to get
0:24 you hooked he's one of the few tech
0:26 insiders to publicly acknowledge that
0:28 the company is responsible for
0:30 programming your phones are working hard
0:33 to get you and your family to feel the
0:35 need to check in constantly some
0:38 programmers call it brain hacking and
0:40 the tech world would probably prefer you
0:41 didn't hear about it
0:44 but Tristan Harris openly questions the
0:47 long-term consequences of it all and we
0:49 think it's worth putting down your phone
0:52 to listen this thing is a slot machine
0:56 how's that a machine well every
0:58 time I check my phone I'm playing the
1:00 slot machine to see what did I get this
1:03 is one way to hijack people's mindset
1:06 create a habit to form a habit what you
1:08 do is you make it so when someone pulls
1:10 a lever sometimes they get a reward an
1:12 exciting reward and it turns out that
1:14 this design technique can be embedded
1:17 inside of all these products the rewards
1:19 Harris is talking about or a big part
1:22 what makes smart phones so appealing the
1:24 chance of getting likes on Facebook and
1:27 Instagram cute emojis and text messages
1:29 and new followers on Twitter there's a
1:31 whole playbook of techniques that get
1:33 used to get you using for the product
1:35 for as long as possible yeah what are
1:37 what kind of techniques are used so
1:40 snapchats the most popular messaging
1:43 service for teenagers and they invented
1:45 this feature called streaks which shows
1:47 the number of days in a row that you've
1:49 sent a message back and forth with
1:50 someone so now you can say well what's
1:51 the big deal here
1:53 well the problem is that kids feel like
1:55 well now I don't want to lose my streak
1:58 but it turns out that kids actually when
1:59 they go on vacation are so stressed
2:01 about their streak that they actually
2:03 give their password to like five other
2:05 kids to keep their streaks going on
2:07 their behalf and so you could ask when
2:09 these features are being designed are
2:11 they designed to most help people
2:13 of their life or their being designed
2:15 because they're best at hooking people
2:18 into using the product is is Silicon
2:19 Valley programming apps are they
2:22 programming people inadvertently whether
2:25 they want to or not they're shaping the
2:29 thoughts and feelings and actions of
2:31 people they are programming people they
2:33 oh there's always this narrative that
2:35 technology's neutral it's up to us to
2:37 choose how we use it this is just not
2:39 true technology's not neutral it's not
2:41 neutral they want you to use it in
2:44 particular ways and for long periods of
2:45 time because that's how they make their
2:48 money it's rare for a tech insider to be
2:51 so blunt Tristen Harris believes someone
2:54 needs to be a few years ago he was
2:56 living the Silicon Valley dream he
2:58 dropped out of a master's program at
3:01 Stanford University to start a software
3:03 company four years later Google bought
3:05 him out and hired him as a product manager
3:06 manager
3:09 it was while working there he started to
3:11 feel overwhelmed honestly I was just
3:14 bombarded in email and calendar
3:16 invitations and just the overload of
3:18 what it's like to work place like Google
3:21 I was asking when is all of this adding
3:24 up to like an actual benefit to my life
3:26 and I ended up making this presentation
3:29 it was kind of a manifesto and it
3:31 basically said you know look never
3:34 before in history have a handful of
3:36 people at a handful of technology
3:39 companies shaped how a billion people
3:41 think and feel every day with the
3:43 choices they make about these screens
3:47 his 144 page presentation argued that
3:49 the constant distractions of apps and
3:51 emails are weakening our relationships
3:53 to each other and destroying our kids
3:56 ability to focus it was widely read
3:59 inside Google and caught the eye of one
4:01 of the founders Larry Page but Harris
4:04 told us it didn't lead to any changes
4:06 and after three years he quit and it's
4:08 not because anyone is evil or has bad
4:10 intentions it's because the game is
4:12 getting attention at all costs and the
4:14 problem is it becomes this race to the
4:16 bottom of the brainstem where if I go
4:18 lower on the brainstem to get you you
4:20 know using my product I win but it
4:22 doesn't end up in the world we want to
4:24 live in we don't end up feeling good
4:24 about how
4:26 using all this you call this a race at
4:27 the bottom of the brainstem it's a race
4:30 to the most primitive emotions we have
4:35 fear anxiety loneliness all these things
4:37 absolutely and that that's again because
4:38 in the race for attention
4:40 I have to do whatever works it
4:43 absolutely wants one thing which is your
4:45 attention now he travels the country
4:47 trying to convince programmers and
4:49 anyone else who listen that the business
4:51 model of tech companies needs to change
4:54 he wants products designed to make the
4:56 best use of our time not just grab our
4:58 attention do you think parents
5:00 understand the complexities of what
5:02 their kids are dealing with when they're
5:04 dealing with their their phone dealing
5:07 with apps and social media no and I
5:08 think this is really important because
5:10 there's a narrative that oh I guess
5:12 they're just doing this like we used to
5:15 gossip on the phone but what this misses
5:17 is that your telephone in the 1970s
5:19 didn't have a thousand engineers on the
5:21 other side of the telephone who are
5:22 redesigning it to work with other
5:24 telephones and then updating the way
5:27 your telephone worked every day to be
5:29 more and more persuasive that was not
5:31 true in the 1970s
5:32 how many Silicon Valley insiders are
5:35 there speaking out like you are not that
5:38 many we reached out to the biggest tech
5:40 firms but none would speak on the record
5:43 and some didn't even return our phone
5:45 call most tech companies say their
5:47 priority is improving user experience
5:50 something they call engagement but they
5:52 remain secretive about what they do to
5:55 keep people glued to their screens so we
5:57 went to Venice California where the body
6:00 builders on the beach are being muscled
6:02 out by small companies that specialize
6:05 in what Ramsey Brown calls brain hacking
6:07 a computer programmer he now understands
6:09 how the brain works knows how to write
6:11 code that will get the brain to do
6:13 certain things
6:16 Ramsey Brown studied neuroscience before
6:18 co-founding dopamine labs a startup
6:21 crammed into a garage the company is
6:24 named after the dopamine molecule in our
6:26 brains that aids in the creation of
6:29 desire and pleasure Brown and his
6:31 colleagues write computer code for apps
6:34 used by fitness companies and financial
6:36 firms the programs are designed to
6:38 provoke a neurological response
6:39 you're trying to figure out how to get
6:41 people coming back when should I make
6:43 you feel a little extra awesome to get
6:45 you to come back into the app logger the
6:47 computer code he creates finds the best
6:49 moments to give you one of those rewards
6:52 which have no actual value but Brown
6:54 says trigger your brain to make you want
6:57 more for example on Instagram he told us
7:00 sometimes those likes come in a sudden
7:03 rush there's holding some of them back
7:05 for you to let you know later in a big
7:08 burst like hey here's the 30 likes we
7:09 didn't mention from a little while ago
7:11 so though all of a sudden you get a big
7:11 burst of Lights
7:13 yeah but why that moment there's some
7:15 algorithm somewhere that predicted hey
7:16 for this user right now who's
7:19 experimental subjects 7 9 B 3 and
7:21 experiment 231 we think we see an
7:23 improvement in his behavior if you give
7:24 it to him this bit in this burst instead
7:25 of that first when Brown says
7:28 experiments he's talking generally about
7:30 the millions of computer calculations
7:32 being used every moment by his company
7:35 and others to constantly tweak your
7:37 online experience and make you come back
7:39 for more you're a part of a controlled
7:41 set of experiments that are happening in
7:43 real time across you and millions of
7:43 other people
7:45 we're guinea pigs you're Kenny thinks
7:46 you were guinea pigs in the Box pushing
7:48 the button and sometimes getting likes
7:50 and they're doing this to keep you in
7:52 there the longer we look at our screams
7:55 the more data companies collect about us
7:58 and the more ads we see ad spending on
8:00 social media has doubled in just two
8:02 years - more than 30 1 billion dollars
8:06 you don't pay for Facebook advertisers
8:08 pay for Facebook you get to use it for
8:09 free because your eyeballs are what's
8:11 being sold there so that's a way to look
8:13 at that you're not the customer for face
8:14 you're not the customer you don't send a
8:16 check to Facebook but coca-cola does
8:19 brown says there's a reason text and
8:20 Facebook use it continue with scroll
8:23 because it's a proven way to keep you
8:25 searching longer you spend half your
8:26 time I face with the scoring to find one
8:28 good piece worth looking at it's
8:30 happening because they're engineered to
8:31 become addictive you're almost saying
8:34 like there's an addiction code yeah that
8:36 is the case the since we've figured out
8:38 to some extent how these pieces of the
8:40 brain that handle addiction are working
8:42 people have figured out how to juice
8:43 them further and how to bake that
8:46 information into apps dinner-table could
8:48 be a technology free zone while brown is
8:50 tapping into the power of dopamine
8:52 psychologist Larry Rowe
8:53 and his team at California State
8:55 University Dominguez Hills are
8:58 researching the effect technology has on
9:02 our anxiety levels looking at the impact
9:04 of Technology through the brain Rosen
9:06 told us when you put your phone down
9:09 your brain signals your adrenal gland to
9:11 produce a burst of a hormone called
9:13 cortisol which has an evolutionary
9:15 purpose cortisol triggers a
9:18 fight-or-flight response to danger
9:20 how does cortisol relate to a mobile
9:22 device a phone what we find is the
9:24 typical person checks their phone every
9:26 15 minutes or less and half of the time
9:27 they check their phone there's no alert
9:29 no notification it's coming from inside
9:31 their head telling them gee I haven't
9:33 checked in Facebook in a while I haven't
9:35 checked on this Twitter feed for a while
9:37 I wonder if somebody commented on my
9:39 Instagram post that then generates
9:41 cortisol and it starts to make you
9:44 anxious and eventually your goal is to
9:46 get rid of that anxiety so you check in
9:48 so the same hormone that made primitive
9:51 man anxious and hyper aware of his
9:52 surroundings to keep him from being
9:53 eaten by lions
9:56 is today compelling Rozen students and
9:59 all of us to continually peek at our
10:01 phones to relieve our anxiety when you
10:04 put the phone down you don't shut off
10:05 your brain you just put the phone down
10:07 can I be honest with you right now I
10:08 haven't paid attention what you're
10:10 saying because I just realized my phone
10:12 is right down by my right foot and I
10:13 haven't checked it in like 10 minutes
10:15 and it makes you anxious I'm a little
10:18 anxious yes we found out just how
10:20 anxious in this experiment conducted by
10:22 Rosen's research colleague Nancy Cheever
10:24 so the first thing I'm gonna do is apply
10:26 these electrodes to your fingers well I
10:29 watched a video a computer tracked my
10:30 new changes in my heart rate and
10:33 perspiration what I didn't know was that
10:35 Cheever was sending text messages to my
10:39 phone which was just out of reach every
10:41 time a text notification went off the
10:44 blue line spiked indicating anxiety
10:46 caused in part by the release of
10:48 cortisol oh that one is yeah that's a
10:50 huge spike right here and if you can
10:51 imagine what that's doing to your body
10:54 every time you get a text message you
10:56 you probably can't even feel it right
10:59 because it's it's such a it's a small
11:02 amount of arousal that's fascinating
11:05 their research suggests our phones are
11:06 keeping us
11:08 in a continual state of anxiety in which
11:12 the only antidote is the phone is it
11:14 known what the impact of all this
11:16 technology use is absolutely not
11:18 it's too soon this we're all part of
11:20 this big experiment what is this doing
11:22 to a young man for a teenager well
11:23 there's some projects going on where
11:24 they're they're actually scanning
11:26 teenagers brains over a 20-year period
11:28 I'm looking to see what kind of changes
11:31 they're finding the story will continue
11:38 here's the reality corporations and
11:40 creators of content have since the
11:42 beginning of time wanted to make their
11:44 content as engaging as possible
11:46 Gabe zickerman has worked with dozens of
11:49 companies including Apple and CBS to
11:50 make their online products more
11:53 irresistible he's best known in Silicon
11:56 Valley for his expertise and something
11:58 called gamification using techniques
12:01 from video games to insert fun and
12:03 competition into almost everything on
12:05 your smartphone so one of the
12:06 interesting things about gamification
12:09 and other engaging technologies is at
12:11 the same time as we can argue that the
12:14 neuroscience is being used to create
12:16 dependent behavior those same techniques
12:18 are being used to get people to workout
12:21 you know using their Fitbit so all of
12:23 these technologies all the techniques
12:25 for engagement can be used for good or
12:28 can be used for bad Zukerman is now
12:30 working on software called onward
12:33 designed to break users bad habits it'll
12:35 track a person's activity and can
12:37 recommend they do something else when
12:39 they're spending too much time online
12:42 I think creators have to be liberated to
12:44 make their content as good as possible
12:46 this idea that the idea that a tech
12:48 company is not going to try to make
12:51 their product as persuasive as engaging
12:53 as possible you're just saying that's
12:54 that's not going to happen
12:56 asking tech companies asking content
12:58 creators to be less good at what they do
13:01 feels like a ridiculous ask it feels
13:03 impossible and also it's very anti
13:04 capitalistic this isn't the system that
13:07 we live in Ramsay Brown and his garage
13:09 start up dopamine labs made a habit
13:12 breaking app as well it's called space
13:15 and it creates a 12 second delay what
13:17 Browne calls a moment of Zen before any
13:20 social media app launches in January he
13:23 tried to convince Apple to sell it in
13:26 their App Store and they rejected it
13:28 from the App Store because they told us
13:31 any app that would encourage people to
13:34 use other apps or their iPhone less was
13:36 unacceptable for distribution in the App
13:37 Store they actually said that to you
13:39 they said that to us they did not want
13:40 us to give out this thing that was going
13:41 to make people less stuck on their phones
13:43 phones you
