Addictive conveniences

Hello friends,

First, a very exciting update:

The event I told you about in the last email has an official date, location and tickets are available at designtechhackathon.com.

It will be hosted at the Centre for Social Innovation near Queen and Spadina on October 31 and November 1. I would love for you to come!

Why I chose the theme of addictive technologies

When I was picking a theme, I had lots of ideas. I knew I wanted to pick a problem that was created by the tech industry, and there were quite a few options I considered.

But stories that I was hearing from people in my circle kept drawing me back to the problem of addictive technologies and how they impact our relationships and communities.

A common theme was that people feel disconnected from their communities, especially in the moments when they really need them. I started to wonder if part of the reason for the disconnection is that we’ve replaced many of the things we used to rely on our communities for with apps on our phone.

A quick story to illustrate my point:

One day in university, back in 2009, my brother was sick with a bad stomach bug. We both were living in the same university town, a few hours from where we grew up, and he called me to ask me to go to the pharmacy and bring him the medicine he needed.

Would that simple request (and the simple act of love it allowed) even happen now? I don’t think so. He would probably just order what he needed from one of the many delivery apps on his phone. Honestly, it’s what I would do too.

I thought about that story often over the last few years when I was living In New York and then Mexico City and consciously trying to grow my community in each new city. Whenever a friend got sick, I would make the classic offer: “let me know if you need anything.”

But, I knew they wouldn’t accept. It was so easy and affordable to have food or medicine delivered, no one wanted to “bother” a friend by asking for their help.

But it wouldn’t have bothered me. I was actively trying to deepen my friendships. I would have been thrilled if one of them actually let me demonstrate my care by helping in those moments.

And yet, not everything has an easy app-based solution. There are things, like emergency childcare or pet care for example, that you can only ask of someone you know and trust. But many people have told me they don’t feel like they have enough of those relationships, where they feel comfortable asking for help, ready when they need them.

Maybe, if we were more regularly asking each other for the smaller, more mundane favours that we’re currently outsourcing to apps, we would feel more supported to ask for the help we need in those more serious moments.

While this probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think about addictive technologies, I do think it’s worth considering seriously within the same conversation. Are these addictive conveniences worth what we’re giving up in community and relationships?

If you want to spend some time thinking about solutions to these types of complex problems, please consider joining me at the hackathon. Or, share it with someone you think might be interested.

You can get tickets at designtechhackathon.com and up to 5 people can use the code NEWSLETTER for a 25% discount as a thank you for reading this email.

Talk to you soon,

Hannah