How many times have you looked at your phone today--only to find yourself looking at something completely different ten minutes later? We’re all addicted to screens, but this book will help you set boundaries that actually work. Though we might not always choose to, we generally know how to eat healthy. Technology, like food, requires boundaries. With nutritional guidelines,;a healthy digital diet is possible for all of us. In this book Game the algorithm Catch misinformation Parent your children in the digital age Spot and tackle microdosing of harmful content Navigate the attention economy, which prioritizes engagement at all costs Improve your digital nutrition for better mental health Spring clean your viewing experience <Smartphone Nation< will empower you to create new tech;habits for yourself, and your children.;It’s essential reading for anyone who owns a smartphone, and it’s guaranteed to help you live a better life, both online and off.

Autorentext
Dr. Kaitlyn Regehr is a world-renowned expert on the cultural impacts of social media. She’s an Associate Professor and the Program Director of Digital Humanities at University College London. Dr. Regehr appears regularly in the media as an expert on this subject, including on BBC News, ITV, BBC Women’s Hour, Channel 4 and in The Economist. She is a prominent voice in the media, a key influence in public policy circles, and a mother of two.

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*“A candid, rigorous, and witty read on how to stop digital devices from wreaking havoc on our lives. As a leading expert on social media and internet policy, Kaitlyn Regehr illuminates what we can do—individually and collectively—to put our smartphones in their place.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast Re:Thinking*

A transformative guide to outsmarting your screen and establishing healthier tech habits that will help you and your family live better—for anyone who read The Anxious Generation and wants to know what to do next.**

Dr. Kaitlyn Regehr—a celebrated researcher and professor of digital humanities—explains how we can hold on to the myriad benefits of technology while evading their hidden dangers. We are all using (and parenting around) a technology we didn’t grow up with; it makes sense that we feel overwhelmed. In Smartphone Nation, Regehr explains how these technologies work, giving you the power to change the way you (and your family) use your devices. Regehr proposes a new, food pyramid–like framework for understanding and improving our digital consumption. Some tech, like nutrient-dense food, is good for us; it is vital in our lives. But so much of what we consume via algorithms is like candy that rots our teeth: it’s disastrous for our wellbeing. Regehr’s groundbreaking research reveals how we can reclaim control and maintain a healthy digital diet.

Essential reading anyone who knows there’s more to life than staring at a screen—or who wants to raise children who believe that, too—Smartphone Nation shows how to:

• Navigate the attention economy, which prioritizes engagement at all costs
• Improve your digital nutrition for better mental health
• Spring clean your viewing experience
• Game the algorithm
• Catch misinformation
• Parent your children in the digital age

Thoughtful, clearsighted, and empowering, Smartphone Nation is essential reading for anyone who owns a phone.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1 The Digital Supermarket

September. Master’s students crowd into a wood-paneled lecture theater. It has hard-backed benches designed likely over a century before anyone owned a computer, let alone brought one to class. And it is here, as students precariously balance their MacBooks atop the ripped knees of light-washed jeans, that I tell them about the internet’s techno-enthusiast beginnings. To start, I often show them an infomercial from the early 1990s called “The Kids’ Guide to the Internet,” which encouraged families to install the internet on their home computers. The ad opens with a jingle, “Take a spin. Now you’re in with the Techno Set. You’re going surfing on the internet!” and then cuts to a family in their living room. They sit on a sofa with geometric-patterned throw cushions. Beside them is a Microsoft desktop computer. “The internet gave us a new world of exciting possibilities,” exclaims Peter, a boy with a blond mushroom cut and an ill-fitting polo shirt. “Now that I’ve gotten on the internet, I’d rather be on my computer than doing just about anything.” His parents smile proudly, as his mother beams, “I haven’t been able to get the kids off it ever since.” The family goes on to speak about how the children have a new global understanding, because they can “talk to people all over the world on chat lines.” The preteens are shown slowly clicking one key at a time to write out an email to President Clinton. And visiting the Smithsonian “without ever leaving home,” as pixelated images of the museum’s archive load jerkily across the desktop screen. But ultimately, the parents are thrilled that their children’s grades and communication skills have apparently improved, offering them a shimmering hope of a college education.

This infomercial acts as a time capsule showcasing the early promise of the internet. And, in many ways, these promises were fulfilled. We are now much more connected to politicians. We can access information and the materials of great institutions remotely. Kids can (for better or for worse) chat to almost anyone anywhere in the world. But the question of whether the internet has enlightened us is up for debate. Whether we are all benefiting from the sum value of global knowledge—or whether, as the media theorist Neil Postman argues, we are amusing ourselves to death—is a complex topic.

Regardless of whether it is primarily a tool or a toy, the internet is largely unregulated relative to any of our other tools or toys. Most of what we consume as citizens is heavily safeguarded by our government and regulatory structures, and though there are new pieces of legislation emerging to protect some aspects of use (which I’ll get to), much of the regulation around our digital consumption falls short of measures routinely taken for other products and services. One of the arguments for this is that these technologies are still new and emerging. But the World Wide Web, born in 1989, has for more than half of the world’s population been a constant since birth. For more than half of us, not only is it not “new,” we’ve never known life without it. Yet consumer protection in this space is still not fit for purpose.

This is different from most other products (food, medication, terrestrial TV) that we use or ingest as consumers. But perhaps that makes sense, for we are not the consumers here—advertisers are. We are not the consumers. We are the product. Our attention—our minds—are the product, which is being sold to these advertisers. This chapter does two things: It maps the evolution of the Web from a space driven by information sharing to a space driven by advertising, and it outlines the lack of consumer protection and regulation overseeing this space.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t use these technologies. But if you want to play in this space, if you want to navigate this terrain, if you want to climb this mountain, you’re essentially doing so without a harness. This doesn’t mean that you can’t take the risk, but there is a greater duty of responsib…