If you don't like Facebook or the networks, then don't use them and that's it... right?
That is like saying that if alcohol causes social problems, it should not be regulated: don't drink it and that's it; but alcohol is addictive for many and we must protect them, and also the children.
Are networks addictive?
Children easily become addicted to screens. And it is not easy for adults to give up on networks, because it is also giving up virtual social ties that – and this is the danger – are substituting real ones. And causing emotional disorders.
I don't know if I see that danger.
It exists, believe me. As an algorithm engineer at Facebook, I studied their plans, and I'm worried, for example, that instead of building homes for the elderly, the day will come when we can leave them plugged into the metaverse day and night...
How powerful is that metaverse?
The metaverse project is only taking off and with the new power of generative artificial intelligence its possibilities are immense: we have to control it to protect the weakest right now and prevent them from degrading our lives.
Do you advocate regulating or prohibiting?
For now, the surgeon general, the highest health authority in the US, has warned parents that 30% of the country's children were connected to their mobile phones until midnight every day. They were official figures.
That can not be good.
It causes mental disorders and school failure. And he also warned them that 10% of the children were still hooked on their mobile phones every day until 2 in the morning.
Those do have a problem.
Do you think the networks are going to give up that lucrative market for children's health?
Should this use be regulated like that of any addictive product?
For this reason, I have become an activist for personal contact against addiction to screens; but I'm afraid it's going to be very difficult to stop the wave of technological innovation that is going to turn education and school into a succession of screens and more 3D.
What do you propose to avoid it?
What I have defended in the Senate: that networks be taxed with new taxes to promote education and interpersonal contact with that money, and that legislation be passed to prevent the metaverse from ending up replacing real residences and schools.
Apart from taxes, can you look for other solutions?
Of course, technology can solve the problems it creates and I have proposed that applications on platforms that engage children be, for example, slower instead of faster, engaging them at a devilishly addictive pace.
What would the network tax invest in to encourage personal contact?
In the infinity of associations of all kinds that have always united our community with meetings in which real people could talk face to face.
As?
Gardening clubs, chess clubs, golf clubs, Rotarians... by God, there are thousands of associations that are finding it increasingly difficult to meet with people and less to post their activities on the networks without a personal presence. And let's subsidize churches and their face-to-face activities, because they are in need.
"Religion": from the Latin religare: to gather.
Gather people; no avatars. And they are running out of in-person parishioners, because they have been meeting online since the pandemic. It is a danger to feel when you connect "as if you are with people" instead of being with real people.
Maybe it's the inevitable future?
It would also be sad because if you are always online alone, you become insecure and fearful; because you lose the sense of security that only real contact with other people gives us.
We are still animals...
And that fear is having political repercussions by favoring the populism of strong leaders who promise security. It is a cause and effect of Facebook.
Does it influence US politics that much?
And of the world, because the algorithms that, in principle, favored debate and discussion, today, by bringing together millions instead of hundreds of users, have become mere radicalizers of emotions.
Is not this radicalization inevitable when digitizing the public debate?
The inevitable was to see that, as Facebook and the other platforms on which I worked as an engineer grew in users by the millions, the quality of our content deteriorated.
Because?
I remember the chief engineer admitting that the most popular and profitable content was also the least proud of us.
