The EU will create a set of rules that will ensure we all spend less time on apps and social media. Since it’s hard to prohibit using cell phones for more than 60 minutes a day, the design of these digital products will have to change. The rules come across as disparaging, but does the EU have solid arguments to doubt our self-control?
The European Parliament is asking the Commission to urgently draft rules to address the design of “digital products”. Although it proposes only a few rules, it will change the design of many social media platforms, applications and webshops.
Indeed, the design of these digital products is, in many cases, characterized by the possibility of endless scrolling. An element that Parliament believes should be banned. The feature that starts playing content automatically, auto play, will also be removed. That is present in YouTube and streaming platforms, for example, and makes a video start playing in the overview of search results without the video being opened.
Who will find out if the designs also cause cellphone addiction?
The EU wants to introduce the rules because, for example, endless scrolling causes us to be addicted to our cell phones. Legislators want to see better protection, mainly for minors. Even though the self-discipline of every adult is thus also strongly questioned.
Parliament claims to want to push the rules through in order to protect our mental well-being. There are no clear arguments that we are indeed no longer capable of putting the cell phone aside ourselves. The focus is on research into the risks linked to online services. So whether these “addictive design techniques” actually achieve their goals no longer seems to need to be questioned. We simply have to assume that. “No self-discipline can beat the tricks of Big Tech, fueled by armies of designers and psychologists who keep you glued to your screen,” are the words of Dutch MEP Kim Van Sparrentak.
Where Parliament wants to go is inherently ethical design. It wants to move away from the “attention economy” in which we now live. Parliament associates the design that now characterizes these platforms with several bad things. It is full of “dark patterns,” is “misleading” and “addictive”.
Paving the way
Parliament is trying to make EU residents all shudder at Big Tech with such legislation. Much legislation for these companies has already been worked out and brought to finalization recently. Things like the Digital Markets Act to increase the competitiveness of smaller players make sense.
In addition, legislation to make digital products safer for users was already agreed upon last year. We are talking about the Digital Services Act (DSA), which includes several rules to protect users from, among other things, monetizing users’ personal data. An argument that now resurfaces for instituting rules that make ethical designs the norm. Does it acknowledge that the DSA does not adequately protect us? Or was the legislation there in order to pave the way for more and more regulations?
Also read: Big Tech gets new rules from EU, what will you notice as a user?
The call to the Commission is very compelling, and we can certainly expect the new rules. The Commission can shape the content of those rules if it acts quickly. If it does not, Parliament will want to use its right of legislative initiative.
2 days ago
