This Guardian column by Rohan Gunatillake asks a question that is so obvious it sounds absurd to ask: What if tech tried to be healing instead of just addictive? In a time when our biggest platforms are acquiring outsize influence in how society actually functions–from politics to personal life–it’s an urgent topic and one that all technologists need to engage with.
Interestingly, Facebook, perhaps the tech company that looms largest over modern social, political, and personal life, is making a conscious and methodical effort to at least open itself up to such questions. It has launched a new series of posts, led by its Policy Chief Elliot Schrage, who wrote the first one, entitled Hard Questions. It’s the kind of effort we need to see all our major tech companies making.