Should Big Tech do more to help control our scroll?

With the sports world mostly on a break other than the Paris Olympics (and the Blue Jays?), it also means a lot of my regular podcasts are also on a break.

So where do I turn? I turn to Trevor Noah and his insightful podcast called – What Now? With Trevor Noah.

I would describe it as a few people sitting around and talking about what is going on in the world, but they are not just complaining. They are digging deep into actual topics and having a very interesting conversation about them.

I am a huge Trevor Noah fan and this podcast keeps me in the loop of the biggest news, while not having to keep up with TV shows like The Daily Show etc.

The episode I listened to today was all about disinformation, which is a huge topic as the US election rolls towards a big winner in November.

This is what the latest episode is about:

When it comes to disinformation, our first instinct is often to ask is this real or fake? But disinformation expert Jiore Craig says that way of thinking misses a much bigger problem. Trevor, Christiana, and Jiore examine how political powers and corporations use information channels to push their agendas, and how we can start pushing back on the systems enabling lies.

What Now? With Trevor Noah
Skip ahead to the 23:30 mark for tech and how they talk to parents.

The part that I found most interesting and most infuriating, was when the guest, Jiore Craig, used examples of how the giant tech companies could be doing more. Like how they push the responsibilities on the parents for why their kids are addicted to scrolling. When in fact, they could do far more to stop it. Parental controls exist, but we have to implement. Why now just implement from the start?

Noah brings up a great point when he says, that tech acts helpless for zeroing in on a problem until you pay for one of the features and you have full access to more data and options imaginable.

The point is, that they could be doing much more to help us all control our scroll.

I don’t want to spoil it all. Give the podcast a listen, it’s pretty casual while touching on real topics.

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