Facebook billionaires endorse tech diets
At Google, some employees use a tool that restricts time spent on email. A senior Apple Inc. executive said his wife used a device that sets iPhone and iPad limits for their children. Members of a venture capital firm meditate before phone-free quarterly meetings. Slava Rubin, co-founder of crowdfunding site Indiegogo, has a strict no-screen policy for gatherings and adopted a similar rule for his bedroom.
“Literally, the only electricity we use is one lamp,” he says.
Faced with a deluge of text messages, social-media updates, emails and other distracting alerts, tech executives, entrepreneurs and rank-and-file workers in Silicon Valley are trying to limit their use of the gadgets and digital services they helped create. The efforts show how the industry is grappling with its own concerns about the attention-sapping effects of the smartphone age. A survey released Monday by Microsoft Corp., the largest workplace software maker, acknowledged that new digital technology can make businesses less productive.
“It definitely took a long time and much misery before I figured out where to draw the line,” said Joe Hewitt, who led Facebook’s early efforts to put the social network on mobile phones. Hewitt said he used to fall into internet rabbit holes, debating people online and scrolling through Twitter. Now he mutes all but the few friends on Facebook who share his interest in gardening, and he rarely posts anything outside the occasional Instagram picture of a homegrown fig or artichoke.
Some employees of Alphabet Inc.’s Google use software called Inbox When Ready. Downloadable for the Chrome browser, the program lets people schedule “lockouts” so they can’t access messages during certain periods. It also hides notifications of new emails except for specific periods of time, removing the temptation to dive into a growing backlog.
The tool also provides feedback about how much time a person is spending writing and reading messages, versus targets they set. “I’m using Inbox When Ready to protect my focus,” the emails say below user sign-offs.
At Facebook, woodworking and analog art-making areas at the headquarters campus give employees the chance to step away from screens. In San Francisco, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, now running the business software company Asana, encourages younger employees to turn off notifications on their phones. Rudin of Indiegogo only checks email during designated times, limiting his messages to quick exchanges. Anything that takes longer he does in person or over the phone.
Alexander Ljung, the co-founder of SoundCloud Ltd., says he turns off all notifications on his phone outside of a messaging app that few people can reach. Thomas Meyerhoffer, a former Apple industrial designer, also blocks alerts on his phone and moved all apps off his iPhone X home screen.
Among friends and colleagues, Meyerhoffer said conversations about the consequences of modern technology are common these days. Google searches for “smartphone addiction” hit an alltime high in January.
“There is an increasing awareness,” said Meyerhoffer, who now designs surfboards and co-founded the doorlock company Latch.
There’s a growing body of evidence about the harmful effects of social media and smartphones, particularly on younger people.
A recent report by researchers at San Diego State University and the University of Georgia concluded teens who spend more time online are less happy than those who spend time on other activities. Another report by Facebook’s own researchers last year found people who passively scroll through posts felt worse afterwards.