Take Control of Your Smartphone Usage -- Talking Tech with Nick Fitz & Kevin Holesh
In this episode of CDT's Tech Talk, host Brian Wesolowski addresses this question: when tech is designed to draw us in, is it possible to disengage and just live life?<br><br>Brian sits down with Nick Fitz, recently a senior researcher at Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight. Then he brings in Kevin Holesh the designer of Moment, an app that allows you to track just how much time you and your family members spend on their phones.<br><br>More on Moment: https://inthemoment.io/<br><br>More on Nick: https://twitter.com/fitznich<br>More on Kevin: https://twitter.com/kevinholesh<br>More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian<br><br>Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.
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Transcript
Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye.
CT.
Tea.
Welcome to CDT's Tech Talk where we dish on tech and Internet policy while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Brian Wasilowski, and it's time to talk tech. This week's episode is all about life in the attention economy. It's a place where information overload and digital dependence makes your attention a valuable commodity. When tech is designed to draw us in, is it possible to disengage and just live life? We'll hear about new research on the topic, and then we'll talk with the developer of an app aimed at making you more aware of your smartphone usage. Did you know that the average person receives between 65 to 80 notifications on their phone each day? Well, no wonder we all feel so distracted. Nick Fitz, formerly a senior behavioral researcher at Duke University's Center for Advanced Hindsight, that's quite the mouthful, is researching the impact that these constant notifications have on us and is also looking at how we can reduce the stress they cause. Nick presented some of this research at the American Psychological Association conference and joins Tech Talk to share his insights. Welcome, Nick.
Hey. How are you doing? I'm great. You? Great.
Glad to hear. So tell us us about your research. What what did you, present and what prompted you to kind of look into notifications specifically?
Sure. So this particular, project where it was on batching notifications and how, smartphone notifications affect productivity in mental health. And I was working at Duke, as you mentioned, a center run by Dan Ariely and there's a social impact accelerator there. And through a company that had created a technology, we decided to run some studies around this to do just that. So notifications come in sort of like a slot machine pass and we thought today. And based on a bunch of research in behavioral science and psychology, we thought maybe batching them in regular intervals in regular intervals, will help sort of calm
the the noise. And what do you mean by batching? Kind of like grouping them into, you know, like, getting them once or twice a day or is that what you mean by batching? Exactly. Exactly. So having them delivered in in predictable intervals. So say all at 9AM and 3PM and 9PM as opposed to just whenever, you know, whenever they come in normally. Cool. And what did you find from this research then? What did it conclude?
Yeah. So we found we we ran a few conditions that we had at that control where people got notifications that they normally did. We had one where we best them every hour and then one where we best them, three times a day and a final one where we nobody got any notifications in this condition. Oh, can I get that one? Yeah. Well, actually, you don't want that one. Oh, okay. That was part of the interesting thing is that for that group, it's sudden, like, stress and anxiety and other things go up and that you constantly have to check the phone for things. And you and because the default has been you know, people have essentially adjusted, to how we live today, that it was a an uncomfortable change. Maybe if we'd done it for, like, six months, let's say we ran a study for the two weeks of the intervention. So if we've done it for a lot longer, maybe we would've seen something different. But Alright. I'll stop interrupting then. Let's tell me about the other ones, what you found out. What is the ideal? Yeah. So that was, that was the batching three times a day, which essentially, we found to increase people's perceived productivity, decrease stress, and and, increase happiness from other other relevant outcomes like that. We essentially measured a bunch of things that you normally measure in, in psychology and psychiatry.
Interesting. Was there, like, specific time intervals that worked for this or didn't you study quite that far? That's a good question. We didn't look at it. So this is Okay.
One of our initial exploratory study where we found that batching makes some sense. You could imagine that maybe you get notification, certain ones when you're at work and certain ones when you're not, or that you get things at different intervals as you said. Or maybe you get, you know, social media notifications once a day or maybe never, but you get calendar right away. You know, there there's there's certainly better combinations. But So there's further research needed. I can imagine that the types, as you just said, the types of content would matter too.
There's certainly, you know, work content that I would not want after a certain hour. And there's plenty of social media content I don't need to see at work. So, that makes perfect sense. So for the one that I I jokingly said I'd love no notifications, was part of the reason that that didn't work was kind of this FOMO effect, you know, the fear of missing out?
Yeah. Exactly. And in in particular, fear of missing out on notifications, of course, it makes sense people are. But that drives a larger sort of discomfort with what you think is happening and what you think isn't. Absolutely. And just, you know, keeping up to date with things. Right? It it can be frustrating if, you know, somebody sends you a message that you that you might actually wanna receive at some point. You don't need to get it right away to interrupting you, but,
it's good to know. Yeah. So after you did this research, did you change your habits at all? Are you now doing kind of the bundling and batching?
So I did well, certainly, I didn't change my habits. If only because it's that's sort of at the at the heart of this is that, we we looked at it and said like anything sort of is free of the product and it's very hard. It is designed against you in these ways, right? So, it's not about like you taking some sort of active choice and saying, okay, now I'm going to check my phone only three times a day and more about how could we design essentially a phone that's supported while being in this way. And so I don't actually have it on my phone, currently just because of some logistical things. So I, am as susceptible as ever. Uh-oh.
I mean, I've tended I tried to to turn off a bunch, but I I can see the value in having that that bundled notification and, you know, just not the constant ones. Those are try those drive me crazy. Yeah. I it did you know, it it had effect, but it's not as if it's like you know, It it certainly there are certain significant effects that are valuable.
And it's not like the effect sizes were, you know, it's not changing everything about your life. So Sure. So you,
you're working with a start up now, I believe. You also have worked and kind of mentored other start ups. And you mentioned that, you know, we may not have the perfect technology to address this yet. Are there any apps that are kind of doing innovative things to address the issues of notifications or doing the bundling themselves or thinking through this in a creative way, you know, about their user?
Yeah. There there are a few. So, of course, the the startup that went through our accelerator, is called Synapse, and they are releasing a version of this, I believe, on that. I'm not 100% sure of where they are. There are some others that do something similar. So there's an AppClub CFO by a guy, Andrew Dunn, that's working on a similar problem. There are some others that are mostly for Android and that it's more flexible and you can do this sort of thing. And, yes, there are people starting to address it. It's a hard thing. I mean, a lot of it is an interventions that redesign the phone. And so I think more and more people are more aware of it. So we've got Tristan Harris who's been advocating for it for a while and a nonprofit called the Center for Humane Technology. There's more and more discussion about it right over the last decade.
So I'm I'm hoping that more will be developed. Absolutely. I mean, one of mine, it's not a note of favorite apps. One is not a notification app, but it's one that just makes me more mindful of my my phone usage. It's called Forest, and literally all it does is is grow a cute little tree. And it just kind of, like, when I touch my phone, it's like, no. Don't kill your tree. And I never kill my tree. And it's everyone listening. It's not a real tree. It's just a virtual tree. But it's that just that enough incentive to make me say, you know what? I don't really need to be looking at my phone right now.
I think they plant trees as well. Oh, yeah.
Oh, real ones.
Yeah. They did they do,
based on yeah. You know, depending on how long you do it and that sort of thing, they won't they won't kill trees. Well, that's good. I mean, this is even more incentive. I mean, I was using this app, not knowing that they were planting real trees. So that just, like, fake little tree in my my forest was enough. So now even more incentive to put that phone down. So I'm gonna ask you kind of a an ethical question. Well, I am not kind of an ethical question. Do you think, you know, having being a developer, working with developers, do you think that, there is an ethical responsibility to think about the broader well-being of users now? Is that something that we should either be teaching or that app developers need to be putting front and center?
Sure. I I think that comes not from I'm not a developer myself. I I don't think that comes from the the development side as as much as it needs to come either from higher up or, you know, even deeper. So it's structural kind of side. So a lot of a lot of the people working on building the technologies like this are just showing up to work in this way. It's not and I don't think people show up saying like how can I create some sort of like AI driven ad based attachment economy system? They just go work for Facebook. And so part of it is just how do you create something where either people pay for it or it's not if it's free, it's not doesn't have the same incentives that we've baked into the system now. I don't know that it's just like switched by taking some ethics courses. Sure. But, well, I've, of course, I feel like we need to do that. I just don't know,
you know, how you tackle it exactly. Yeah. I know. It's a challenging one. So you recently left Duke, onto new exciting adventures. What's ahead for you? What are the interesting projects you're going to be doing and things you're gonna be creating?
Yeah. Now I'm, running a a nonprofit and a, a startup where we build an app, that makes donating simple, and transparent and fun. So, essentially, you pick things in your daily life that trigger automatic relevant donations. So you go out to eat, and it might add automatically at 3% and move it to someone who needs food or you get a beer and it rounds it up and, move it to someone who needs clean water, or Steph Curry hits a three and you move some money or, they talk to me and you get 10¢ to the ACLU. So Or a CDT. I mean, we we we've been taking him on quite a bit. We'd be a great cause. That's right. That's right. You guys are a c three. And we, and then we track and show your impact. So, you know, outcomes like, you know, dead nets or bonds of carbon offsets or, other sorts of things like the wells being built or recipients of the basic income that you create. That's awesome. Very, very cool. What's the name of that startup? It's called Sparrow right now. Although the name,
may change, and we are still the the version that we have is still private. Okay. So we'll just look for that. Keep our eyes open is what you're saying. That's right.
That's
great. That's great. Well, Nick, thank you so much for joining Tech Talk. I learned a ton. Wish you the very best with your next endeavors, and, I'll be looking for new apps out there to help me bundle my notifications.
Okay. Great. Thanks so much. Awesome.
When it comes to the attention economy, one of the most obvious sources of distraction is our cell phone. Whether mindlessly scrolling through Twitter or Instagram during a meeting, or stopping mid conversation to respond to a text, cell phones are unquestionably changing the way we interact with other humans. And yes, we are all guilty. Today's guest is trying to help us live better and take more control of our phone usage. Kevin Hollis is the designer of Moment, an app that allows you to track just how much time you and your family members spend on their phones. The motto for Moment is put down your phone and get back to your life. That sounds wonderful. Welcome, Kevin. Thanks for having me, Brian. It's a pleasure. So tell us about Moment. Why did you design it, and what does it do?
Sure. So, Moment is basically a screen time tracker. So it logs how much time you spend on your phone each day. And I came up with the idea mostly for myself. So it was about Awesome. Five years ago. And I was looking at the Fitbit on my wrist, and I knew exactly how many steps I was taking each day. But I had no idea how much time I was spending on my phone. So I looked around for, you know, a screen time tracking application and couldn't find one. So being an app developer, I built one myself, and
released it about four years ago, and it's been been my, my full time project since then. It seems like other people were after kind of the same information I was after. So yeah. Tell us a little bit more about, the information that you can kind of get from it. I mean, we're a privacy organization, so let us know about, you know, your privacy too in terms of tracking. But what are some of kind of the, you know, bits of information you get beyond just screen time usage?
Sure. So Moment tracks also how many times you pick up your phone. Oh, wow. Sometimes it it depends on the person, but there's there's kind of, like, two types of phone users, people that use it for, like, long sessions at a time, and then people track, how how many times you pick up your phone. And it also will track what apps you use, and how how long you use those apps just so you can target some kind of hot spots where you'd like to spend less time. Instagram, for for example.
I mean, I like Instagram. I think I need to spend less time on Twitter because that's the one that makes me angry these days.
Exactly. You know, that's how I eliminated half an hour of screen time per day is just deleting Twitter. And I'm much happier for it. I have more time because of that as well. Okay. So let's let's talk about some of the the insights that, you know, you now have, I think, 6,000,000
downloads of Moment or about 6,000,000. Well, I'm sure you've talked to some of the people using it. What are some of the surprising or interesting things that users are discovering about their usage or, like, changes that they're making in their lives?
One thing that I hear constantly is just the surprise of how much they're using their phones. So when you install Moment, it you know, a two digit number, it's four hours on
Hey, Kevin. Hey, Kevin. That kinda broke up. Yeah. Definitely. And we're rolling, guys. So, whenever you're ready. Okay. To you?
So one thing I hear constantly with people that email me about Moment is just the surprise at how much they use their phone. Most people guess they use their phone about two hours a day, but that real number ends up being closer to four hours a day. And I think that kind of shocks and alarms, people when they when they first install Moment.
Yeah. No. That is a shocking one. I I as I, you know, confessed earlier, I have installed Moment on my phone and was surprised. I am closer to that four hour a day kind of thing. And, you know, in terms of users, I think I'm I'm that one who kinda just keeps picking it up, and that's a terrible practice, especially, you know, during meetings or when I'm having chats. Do you think that, you know, obviously, Silicon Valley, it is about or so many of the apps and technologies created are about grabbing your attention. You know, and now you're creating an app that is meant to, you know, direct your attention more to, let's just say, the real world. You know, and this is considered, like, new and revolutionary thinking. And, you know, I saw a Washington Post article where they referred to you as a rebel developer. Do you think that's fair? And do you think that maybe there is a movement afoot where, folks that are developing different types of apps for your phones and different technologies are maybe a little bit more aware of the impact it's having on how humans interact with one another?
Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. It was it was kinda interesting to be called a rebel developer. Yeah. I think there is something to that. I mean, I I designed the moment basically to be an anti app. Like, it's an app that you install on your phone, but it doesn't beg for your attention. I do actually measure how long people spend inside of the Moment app and actually actually try to reduce that. So right now, the average person spends about three seconds a day inside Moment, which I think is a a good thing. That's pretty good. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, you don't wanna analyze your phone. You just it just, you know, increases your screen time. But, I I think for every, you know, one developer that's, you know, mindful of other people's attention, there's there's probably a 100 or even a thousand that are working on tools and networks that are trying to capture more and more of your attention, basically to show you ads and make money. Yeah. So I I think it it's still, you know, we're outnumbered, but there's there's definitely, you know, a movement afoot. I mean, the population I'm sorry. The popularity of meditation apps, is is kind of, you know, increasing, at at rapid speed. So it's kind of cool to see that, you know, a mindful technology that's good for people, even if it is an app, to be so popular.
Yeah. Absolutely. Are you working on any other any other apps? Anything new coming from you that we should be watching for?
Not really. I mean, I'm still working on Moment. That that's my sole focus. I'm working on a few tools to actually help people put down their phone more. So it's one thing to know how much time you're spending on your phone, but it's another to rewire some potentially bad habits you might have around your phone. So I'm working on kind of a a coach feature for that. Oh, cool. What are some of the, I was about to ask you? You know, beyond, of course, downloading Moment,
you know, any advice that you might have for people who want to, you know, learn what they do from Moment and say, oh, crap. I need to fix some from some habits here. What's some advice in terms of using your phone less or at least being more mindful about your phone usage?
Mhmm. Definitely. I think the biggest piece of advice I could give is just to put put some physical distance between you and your phone. So in the case of, you know, going out to dinner with your friends, you know, just leave your phone in your pocket or leave it in the car. Yeah. And at night, totally ban your phone from your bedroom. You know, your phone shouldn't be, you know, the last thing you see before you go to sleep and the first thing you see in the morning. You said, you know, give yourself a little bit of, off time to, sleep well. So those two tips, you know, could save a ton of secretion time but also result in you sleeping better and having better conversations. So that that's a pretty easy thing to do,
saying it, but it's definitely harder to do, in practice. Yeah. And I don't think that anyone would say, that I meet at least, would say that they're getting enough sleep. So anything that can help with that would be amazing. So finally, before I let you go, you know, you've kind of changed your life beyond creating this and are living in an RV. Tell me about that. You know, is this something that we should all consider doing? Is that a way to be be more mindful?
It definitely is. I mean, as I talk to you, I'm in Western Montana right next to the Yellowstone River. Oh, that's awesome. It's pretty amazing. And I, you know, I still work full time. I just do it from kind of the most beautiful places in the country. It's something you should definitely consider. Maybe not full time, but just weekend trips. You know, for I I think it's different for every person, but I definitely feel refreshed if I leave my phone at home for a weekend and go hiking or backpacking or something. It's just,
you know, it kinda clears the slate a little bit. Yeah. No. That is some good advice. And I I very much try to do that too. When you get out in nature, you don't need a phone with you. So that's wonderful. I don't know if I'll be getting an RV, but, I am very jealous of the picture you just painted out there. So thank you so much for joining. Everyone, take a look at Moment. I've definitely learned a ton by using That's it for this episode of Tech Talk. Hopefully, you've been a bit inspired to think about your smartphone habits and how to make them more positive. And for the very latest on what CDT is doing on all of our tech policy issues, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or visit cdt.org. I'm Brian Wasilowski. Thanks so much for listening.
