Tech Leaders Warn of the Human Cost of the Internet’s ‘Largest Social Experiment’
· Time
Fifteen executives from the tech and business sectors gathered in Cannes, France, on June 23 to discuss strategies for creating a healthier digital world for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. But the conversation ended up concluding that the online world is currently unhealthy for every age group.
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The roundtable was moderated by TIME CEO Jessica Sibley and co-hosted by Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, who in March called for all governments to ban social media for kids under 16 in an op-ed for TIME. (The event was also sponsored by Pinterest.) Australia became the first country to start such a ban last year, and the U.K. this month announced plans to start one in 2027. Nearly 40 other countries are currently considering similar legislation.
“The data has become overwhelming in terms of the negative implications, especially for kids and for young people,” Ready said at the roundtable. “Effectively they've been part of the largest social experiment in human history. I don't think any of them ever signed up for that. I don't think their parents signed up for that. We as a tech community need to do a much better job of creating products that are safe and responsible for young users.”
In addition to government regulations, Ready called for tech platforms to reduce addictive features like infinite scrolling and content suggestions, and the default ability to message strangers, including young people. Unfortunately, Ready noted, the opposite is happening. “Now with AI bursting onto the scene, it's even more important that we have these conversations,” he told the room, “because you're seeing the same attention-hacking techniques happening in so many of the chatbots.”
Alphonzo Terrell, who co-founded the fandom app Spill after he was dismissed as head of social and editorial at Twitter when Elon Musk bought the company, warned that the industry shouldn’t write off social media altogether. “Kids need what we all need, regardless of age, which is belonging. Social technology has been incredible for belonging, particularly for folks who felt like they were on the margins of their particular community or lifestyle. It has transformed Black kids, queer kids, women, immigrants, disabled kids, neurodivergence,” he said. Then he became visibly emotional. “So when you see the volume and the sustained attacks on these kids who are coming to these platforms because they have nowhere else to go to find people like them, it's masochistic. I don't know how morally you can continue building in the same direction without making that your top priority. …If we do our jobs the right way—you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs—you cannot get to belonging without safety.”
The problems with social media today are multifaceted, the group agreed. Addictiveness; harassment and bullying; the atrophying of academic, social, and physical skills; isolation—the list went on. Graham Dugoni, who founded the phone-locking pouch company Yondr, now used widely in schools and at live events, argued more broadly for phone-free spaces where young people can let their guard down. “Kids are afraid of being filmed and recorded at any point, anywhere, all the time...It's absolutely insane that people can be filmed, documented, and broadcast online anywhere all the time,” he said. “If you think about that through the lens of social psychology...there's a reason they're so anxious, and that's a big part of it.”
Each executive focused on their areas of greatest interest, but none had the solutions to all of the many issues with social media. A quick poll of the room showed that everyone thought infinite scroll features should be redesigned to be less addictive, and that users should not be able to direct message strangers; most thought that public accounts and location tracking should never be the default; about half thought apps should do away with public “like” counts; and only a few thought apps should get rid of push notifications.
Netflix CMO Marian Lee acknowledged the overarching challenge facing the industry: “That attention economy is what fuels our business, so it is an existential thing,” she said. “I have kids too, and I think about it, but I'm also in a role where I need to find the audiences, meet the audiences where they are, and keep them engaged.”
Ready noted that making social media healthier will require a real industry shift toward new goals and metrics. “What you see happening with the attention maximization is a market failure; it is a race to the bottom. When I came into Pinterest, Pinterest was also trying to maximize attention, and you saw the same things happen in terms of clickbaity content rising to the top. And we said we're going to start to design for getting people off our platform, because they're supposed to be coming to our platform to do something in their real life. It was very controversial, including internally, but if you look now at how people feel after time spent on the platform, that shift in what outcome was being sought was everything.”
He offered his idea for a solution: “We have to rethink what are the outcomes that we're seeking, and then how do we find common ways to measure those, so there could actually be accountability around these things?”
Other roundtable participants included Hinge CEO Jackie Jantos, Calm co-CEO Michael Acton Smith, Pacsun CEO Brie Olson, Dear Media CEO Michael Bosstick, Spotify Chief Public Affairs Officer Dustee Jenkins, JPMorganChase CMO Carla Hassan, Pinterest CMO Claudine Cheever, Salesforce Chief Adoption Officer Polly Sumner, Mars Global Responsible & Purpose Marketing Officer Jacqui Stephenson, and TIME COO Mark Howard.
From Attention to Intention: Creating a Healthier Digital World for the Next Generation was presented by Pinterest.