HOW BIG TECH HAS STOLEN YOUR LIFE
Web giants are selling our secrets, twisting our characters and destabilising politics
Don’t Be Evil: The Case Against Big Tech Rana Foroohar Allen Lane €17.99 ★★★★
One of the difficulties in understanding the global workings of ‘Big Tech’, according to the journalist Ran a Foroohar, is that ‘it operates entirely by stealth’: silently gathering personal information on our clicks and choices, packaging our data up and selling it on and slyly monetising our yearning for excitement and approval.
Luckily, the author, who has covered the main players and events in the tech revolution for more than 20 years, is a knowledgeable guide. She gives the example of her ten-yearold son Adam, who racked up more than $900 in charges from Apple’s App Store. Adam had downloaded the
Fifa football game free on his iPhone, but soon realised that the best players must be bought with ‘Fifa cash’ and souped up with further paid-for tricks. With serial unauthorised cash injections, Adam’s team was soaring ahead, and if he ever tried to pull away, his iPhone would flash with a reminder of upcoming games. As Adam described it: ‘The game just kind of took over.’
Many of us have also experienced the addictive power of the internet, through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and beyond.
The reason, explored here, lies partly in what are described as ‘intermittent behavioural rewards’. A Fifties experiment found that lab rats are content if a food pellet is given consistently, for example, on every fifth pull of a lever. But if it is given inconsistently, they develop a mad craving and will pull incessantly at the lever in hope of reward. The logic of the slot machine applies equally to the smartphone: ‘We keep pressing the lever in the hope of those random rewards: a gossipy email, a cute snapshot, an exciting bit of news.’
Although tech has delivered vast benefits in convenience and free information, it has human behaviour for the worse, triggering
‘It appears to have turned from a geeky, visionary college kid into an amoral bully
an epidemic of distractibility. And it has destabilised our political landscape and employment market: this book examines the tech-generated ‘gig economy’ pioneered by companies such as Uber and Amazon – delivering soaring profits for bosses but insecurity for workers.
Eighty per cent of corporate wealth is now held by ‘just about ten per cent of companies’, many of them technology companies. At some point soon, Foroohar argues, tech will have to encounter the kind of legislation that split up monopolies in the age of America’s robber barons.
As Big Tech has grown unchecked – unmoored from social responsibility – it appears to have turned from a geeky, visionary college kid into a very savvy, rich, amoral bully who persistently dodges tax. Reading this insightful, powerfully argued book, it’s hard to disagree with the author’s view that we need to make it play by tighter rules.
IT’S A FACT If you’ve ever consulted the internet to look up your medical condition, there’s a term for you: a cyberchondriac.