we’re all a little bit of nancy, and also a little bit of john
and no, I’m not talking about Stranger Things (although who am I to say that we’re not all a little bit of Nancy Wheeler and/or Jonathan Byers?)
No, this Nancy and John are fictional people in an example that Tristan Harris uses in his TED Talk, in which he asks us, fellow tech users (and perhaps budding tech designers in the making), to reconsider and have a conversation about how we can create better tech to minimize distractions. Which I know we’re unfortunately all too familiar with; even as I’m writing this, I’m constantly glancing at the little push notifications that Tumblr so conveniently provides, reminding me that there are new posts on my dashboard, begging for my attention. And it’s so tempting to just save this draft and indulge my curiosity or give in to the compulsive need to check my phone in case I miss a group text that I don’t even want to participate in right now because I know I need to disconnect, to focus on writing this and manage to keep to my new, healthy sleep schedule.
So, right now, I’m a Nancy: in Harris’ Talk, she’s working on a document when she’s interrupted by John’s text, asking for that document before he forgets. Nancy’s time and attention are now being spent on either responding to John quickly, so she can close the chat and get back to work or ignore it completely. But she might be worried that she’s missing something now, something important. And I’ve been in John’s position, too, where I need to message a friend while also worrying that I’m not taking the time that they could be spending on something more productive than talking to me. So, how might we fix this?
For once, instead of blaming the tech that “allows” these distractions to occur and insisting we just “turn them off”, I was pleasantly surprised that Harris simply suggested that we need to design and demand better tech that allows us to efficiently spend our time on it. More than that, however, Harris emphasizes that we need to demand this new tech so that we can build a new relationship with tech that measures, builds, and values positive, quality connections – not just measuring “time spent”, but time well spent.
How would you design this new tech? How could you use your talents, as creators, to start up this conversation?