Big Tech S2E2: Douglas Rushkoff On Reclaiming Our Humanity on the Internet
May 7, 2020
Listen to this week’s new episode of Big Tech, where Douglas Rushkoff talks about the importance of realigning humanity and the internet in the field of technology development. Listen below!
Modern digital tools have brought about new conveniences and has enabled many to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have countless ways to connect with each other, but studies show that increasingly, people are more isolated, more depressed and less empathetic.
In this episode of Big Tech, co-hosts David Skok and Taylor Owen speak with Douglas Rushkoff about the internet’s evolution from an emerging technology to the monopolistic system we have today. Rushkoff is a professor of media theory and digital economics at CUNY/Queens and author of Team Human, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, and more.
Rushkoff reflects on his involvement in the early internet; at that time, there wasn’t any online advertising and computer coding was seen as a hobby rather than a career. As more people’s attention moved online, so did advertisers. The internet became an extension of American capitalism, seeking to analyze, optimize and capture our attention to generate growth. Now, we see the impact on society, democracy and wellbeing. But Rushkoff explains that the problem isn’t the technology, it’s the application. “People think, oh, you used to like digital, and now you hate digital. No, digital’s been the same, I used to love the way that we applied digital, and now I hate the way we’re applying digital. There’s a really big difference. It’s like, I like hammers as long as people aren't hitting each other in the face with them.” For Rushkoff, it’s time to change the course of technology development, and put humanity first.
