IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019 - 86

Our first suggestion involves
integrating more ethicists into the
product development process.
social norms of communication and event planning
favoring Facebook, one misses out on opportunities by
not opting into these platforms. Therefore, by normalizing the use of these platforms, the same platforms that
also have power over user's experience of conscious
will, users have less power to opt out against these platforms. Furthermore, as seen in the seemingly puerile
example of the businessman, users are perpetuating
the reduction of person-to-person interactions by continually making a subconscious prioritization of interacting
digitally. This subconscious prioritization further
increases the power the platform has over one's conscious will. Not only is a person hypnotized into misattributing the cause of the reduction of person-to-person
interactions, that person also becomes the agent who
perpetuates this problem. Users are being manipulated
to perpetuate the reduction of person-to-person interaction, while simultaneously being hypnotized to misattribute the cause of this reduction. This forms a
hypnotic perpetuation machine, which is becoming
increasingly difficult to shut down.
Behind these platforms sits the computer scientist, the
developer of these socially favored applications. Computer scientists are the individuals who instantiated a society
reliant on their technology. They have the ability to alter
the design and functionality of these powerful applications. The power given to computer scientists comes from
the inherent nature of the computing field. Individuals
without the knowledge base, and the immense training,
are displaced from the development process. Computer
scientists, the modern hypnotists, have placed a trance
on the norms of society, altering them in ways that perpetuate the continued use of their services.

Leaving the Trance
Understanding that the highly technical field in which
computer professionals find themselves inadvertently
forces them to make ethical decisions, is the first step
to leaving this hypnotic trance. As shown above, opting
out of these socially powerful platforms might create
important disadvantages for individuals. Thus solutions
other than quitting must be explored further. Our first
suggestion involves integrating more ethicists into the
product development process. By integrating more ethicists into the creation and development of platforms, we

will be letting the trained ethics experts make ethical
decisions. Power abuses, like the commodification of
conscious will, will be reduced. It is important to give
these ethicists power in the software development process. Allowing a group of ethicists the ability to reject
certain technological explorations, or even alter how the
exploration is happening, should be supported by the
companies they work for.
There also needs to be a professional culture of
acceptance towards these ethicists. One way to create
this acceptance is by having the ethicists work with the
computer professionals in developing a set of standards
for approving a project for development. This collaborative effort will allow for computer professionals to voice
their concerns, while also giving the ethicists the ability
to create ethical development. Furthermore, having
more software engineers asking the question of "why,"
will aid in reducing this power imbalance as well. "One
can ask: For the sake of what deeply meaningful ends
are our technologies well suited or ill suited" [23]? Not
only do software engineers need to be asking the question "why?," they need to be introspective. They should
use this introspection to evaluate the biases and beliefs
that reside behind their own consciousness, and try to
remove them when making these design choices. With
over a billion people around the world using software
like Facebook daily, seemingly unimportant design decisions (like having a user profile) can drastically alter the
way psychological development occurs for those individuals. Furthermore, design choices to have a plethora of
filters and image manipulation tools can lead to "invisible miscalculation" [22]. Extra application features may
seem enticing, but we must ask "what is being maximized and for what reason?" [23].
Furthermore, in order for users to be able to escape
the trance, companies need to be more transparent
with their design intentions. While we think completely
getting rid of technologies like Facebook and Snapchat
might be quite radical, we do believe that steps need to
be taken to make users of a platform aware of the intentions of the developers. When users better understand
the purposes and goals of a platform, they will have
more information to aid in deciding their use. A platform that discloses, in an obvious way, that it will profit
off of selling user data, will allow for users to gain
agency over whether they are willing to give up ownership of their data. Furthermore, reduction of the use
of social media to affect day-to-day experiences is
also important. Using social media to judge a person's character only entrenches these harmful use
patterns. Instead of posting to one's timeline, talk to
those around you, make real world connections.
Rather than using social media to be social, use them
to schedule or organize in-person social events.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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JUNE 2019

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019