full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Tristan Harris: How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So let me give you a concrete example. Today, let's say your friend cancels dinner on you, and you are feeling a little bit lloney. And so what do you do in that moment? You open up Facebook. And in that memont, the designers in the control room want to schedule exactly one thing, which is to maximize how much time you spend on the screen. Now, instead, imagine if those designers crteead a different timeline that was the easiest way, using all of their data, to actually help you get out with the people that you care about? Just think, anilevalitg all loneliness in sicoety, if that was the tilneime that Facebook watned to make possible for people. Or imagine a different crtanovsoein. Let's say you wanted to post something sirerorsocuaevpntl on Facebook, which is a really itomaprnt thing to be able to do, to talk about controversial tocpis. And right now, when there's that big cmmeont box, it's almost asking you, what key do you want to type? In other words, it's scheduling a little timeline of things you're going to continue to do on the screen. And imagine instead that there was another btuotn there saying, what would be most time well spent for you? And you click "host a dinner." And right there underneath the item it said, "Who wants to RSVP for the dinner?" And so you'd still have a conversation about something controversial, but you'd be having it in the most empowering place on your timeline, which would be at home that night with a bunch of a friends over to talk about it. So imagine we're running, like, a find and replace on all of the timelines that are currently steering us towards more and more screen time persuasively and replacing all of those timelines with what do we want in our lives.

Open Cloze

So let me give you a concrete example. Today, let's say your friend cancels dinner on you, and you are feeling a little bit ______. And so what do you do in that moment? You open up Facebook. And in that ______, the designers in the control room want to schedule exactly one thing, which is to maximize how much time you spend on the screen. Now, instead, imagine if those designers _______ a different timeline that was the easiest way, using all of their data, to actually help you get out with the people that you care about? Just think, ___________ all loneliness in _______, if that was the ________ that Facebook ______ to make possible for people. Or imagine a different ____________. Let's say you wanted to post something __________________ on Facebook, which is a really _________ thing to be able to do, to talk about controversial ______. And right now, when there's that big _______ box, it's almost asking you, what key do you want to type? In other words, it's scheduling a little timeline of things you're going to continue to do on the screen. And imagine instead that there was another ______ there saying, what would be most time well spent for you? And you click "host a dinner." And right there underneath the item it said, "Who wants to RSVP for the dinner?" And so you'd still have a conversation about something controversial, but you'd be having it in the most empowering place on your timeline, which would be at home that night with a bunch of a friends over to talk about it. So imagine we're running, like, a find and replace on all of the timelines that are currently steering us towards more and more screen time persuasively and replacing all of those timelines with what do we want in our lives.

Solution

  1. topics
  2. timeline
  3. important
  4. button
  5. moment
  6. conversation
  7. society
  8. lonely
  9. comment
  10. wanted
  11. supercontroversial
  12. created
  13. alleviating

Original Text

So let me give you a concrete example. Today, let's say your friend cancels dinner on you, and you are feeling a little bit lonely. And so what do you do in that moment? You open up Facebook. And in that moment, the designers in the control room want to schedule exactly one thing, which is to maximize how much time you spend on the screen. Now, instead, imagine if those designers created a different timeline that was the easiest way, using all of their data, to actually help you get out with the people that you care about? Just think, alleviating all loneliness in society, if that was the timeline that Facebook wanted to make possible for people. Or imagine a different conversation. Let's say you wanted to post something supercontroversial on Facebook, which is a really important thing to be able to do, to talk about controversial topics. And right now, when there's that big comment box, it's almost asking you, what key do you want to type? In other words, it's scheduling a little timeline of things you're going to continue to do on the screen. And imagine instead that there was another button there saying, what would be most time well spent for you? And you click "host a dinner." And right there underneath the item it said, "Who wants to RSVP for the dinner?" And so you'd still have a conversation about something controversial, but you'd be having it in the most empowering place on your timeline, which would be at home that night with a bunch of a friends over to talk about it. So imagine we're running, like, a find and replace on all of the timelines that are currently steering us towards more and more screen time persuasively and replacing all of those timelines with what do we want in our lives.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
control room 5
billion people 5
superhuman ability 4
control rooms 2
lab called 2
persuasive technology 2
technology lab 2
business model 2
human nature 2
hypothetical future 2
runaway artificial 2
lizard brain 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
persuasive technology lab 2

Important Words

  1. alleviating
  2. big
  3. bit
  4. box
  5. bunch
  6. button
  7. cancels
  8. care
  9. click
  10. comment
  11. concrete
  12. continue
  13. control
  14. controversial
  15. conversation
  16. created
  17. data
  18. designers
  19. dinner
  20. easiest
  21. empowering
  22. facebook
  23. feeling
  24. find
  25. friend
  26. friends
  27. give
  28. home
  29. imagine
  30. important
  31. item
  32. key
  33. lives
  34. loneliness
  35. lonely
  36. maximize
  37. moment
  38. night
  39. open
  40. people
  41. persuasively
  42. place
  43. post
  44. replace
  45. replacing
  46. room
  47. rsvp
  48. running
  49. schedule
  50. scheduling
  51. screen
  52. society
  53. spend
  54. spent
  55. steering
  56. supercontroversial
  57. talk
  58. time
  59. timeline
  60. timelines
  61. today
  62. topics
  63. type
  64. wanted
  65. words