How Google and Facebook hooked us – and how to break the habit

RARELY has a thumbs up led to such bad feeling. Back in 2009, Justin Rosenstein created Facebook’s “Like” button. Now he has dedicated himself to atoning for it.

Rosenstein’s voice is far from a lone one. A decade ago, society was wide-eyed at the possibilities of social networks, web search, smartphones and online shopping. The Google motto “Don’t be evil” expressed a prevailing optimism about how the internet, and the companies shaping it, would create a better, more open world.

No longer. “Just a few years ago, no one could say a bad word about the tech giants,” says Martin Moore of King’s College London. “Now no one can say a good word.” Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon variously avoid tax, crush competition and violate privacy, the complaints go. Their inscrutable algorithms determine what we see and what we know, shape opinions, narrow world views and even subvert the democratic order that spawned them.

Advertisement
In 2018, a “techlash” is in full flow. There is broad agreement that something must be done about big tech. But must it? And if so, what?

To understand big tech’s peculiar power, it helps to get to grips with the roots of its success, and they lie deep in the human psyche. Take the Like button. On the face of it, there is a lot to like about it. Why bother typing out a negative comment to a post, when you can communicate a positive response to something else with a click? “It was a conscious exercise to …