How Many Times Did You Pick Up Your Phone Today?
When we think AI, we visualize a robot having a conversation with us, giving thoughtful and coherent responses. However, we fail to realize how artificial intelligence technology has been around for decades, in ways that we oversee and pass off as a smart algorithm. This is because AI systems are, in a nutshell, prediction machines, and they learn the same way a child would as best redacted by Alexandre Gonfalonieri in his article, “What is an AI Algorithm?”. You provide datasets and an AI will use patterns to build assumptions based on those findings. After defining success, it will use machine learning to update and learn from the previous outcomes to increase its accuracy. Understanding and accepting that our technological devices already have AI implemented can help us take the next step and not only focus on ways to improve it but also lets us take a step back and understand when we are depending on it.
Waking up, the first thing I do is grab my phone to shut my alarm off. My phone scans my face and recognizes its owner, then proceeds to unlock itself and let me roam through my entire lives-worth of data in the small 6x3” device. After checking my social media (which contains AI working behind the scenes to personalize my feed, providing what it thinks I would enjoy), I put my phone back, only to pick it up approximately 50 seconds later.
One can easily get trapped in social-media feeds, specifically because of how good the AI-induced algorithm is when it comes to predicting what to show you next. Did you spend 20 seconds looking at the video of a golden retriever softly carrying an egg in its mouth? She will definitely like this gif of a pug trying to scare its owner once it comes up the stairs. One calculation after the other, the AI recognizes your weakness and knows what you are in the mood to watch. One day it could be cute puppies, but the next you might be in the mood to learn a new recipe. That being said, it is important to recognize when you should exit the app and switch tasks. As useful as social media is for connecting and expanding your circle, it can also be a big waste of time. Could you have lived on your day not watching those videos of the puppies or reading that one recipe? Sure, as much as it pains for us to admit it. Do you feel like your day got better after doing so? To a certain extent. Could you have utilized your time better? Possibly.
I remember having a conversation with someone who I believed was very antisocial for not having social media accounts. The guy did not even watch Netflix movies or shows, and right before I labeled him as completely weird, he explained his reasoning. Once you remove all distractions, you learn to maximize your time properly. Half of the time we think removing social media from our lives would do us more harm than good, and in my opinion, there is only one counterargument for that- our sanity. I genuinely feel like the average human being in our generation needs a daily dose of social media to maintain their head stuck to their body. I might be just as brainwashed as the rest of them, but I do not believe humans are capable of maximizing their time without having some sort of relapse. When I say relapse, I mean it in the sense of opening your phone That being said, it is important to lower your dose to a healthy amount. While writing this, I switched tabs into unrelated websites at least 12 times and opened my phone a total of 15 times. Did I still get it done? Yes. Did I possibly lose my trail of thought, resulting in this article taking another route to the one I originally had in mind? Most likely. However, I genuinely believe these interventions kept me sane. Lowering the number of times I open my phone while doing homework is something I definitely have to work on, but without realizing it, I get trapped in my preferred social media algorithm every time, or at least way more times than I care to admit.
