AGENDA (stands for Society Against Attention Economy and Digital Addiction)
About us
People’s focus is gradually deteriorating. You have probably noticed how often you check your phone while you are studying, and how hours can get lost scrolling. Nowadays, the average office worker can only focus on one task for 3 minutes before getting distracted by their phone or email. We are taught to blame ourselves for being lazy or undisciplined, but these apps have been designed, using sophisticated psychology, to be addictive. It is like having a supercomputer pointed at your brain and trying to resist it.
Imagine a world full of people who are constantly distracted and lost in the scroll. This will impact politics because democracy depends on people paying attention to the important things in society and participating. On top of this, algorithm-driven echo chambers are giving users an increasingly narrow view of the world. And as humans are getting increasingly distracted, AI technology is getting increasingly smarter.
The big tech companies do not have incentive to stop because they more time you waste scrolling, the more money they make. If you are tired of feeling like you have lost the battle against your digital addiction, and you are filled with regret each time you realise that you have wasted precious time on pointless scrolling that you can’t even remember, it is time to take a stance against the attention economy.
There are already people who have left high status jobs at Google and Meta because they realise that what they are doing is ethically wrong. Ironically enough, many of the people still working for these companies, also ban their own children from using this technology, because they know how harmful their own products are.
Why should you care? Well, because you only live once, and your attention is your most precious resource. Time wasted is essentially about life wasted. At LSE, we could be the pioneers of this new movement. This is only the beginning.
Events
- Discussion groups (can also turn into debates) twice a month (can become weekly if demand is high). Topics we can discuss are relevant news, new literature, podcasts, own thoughts, etc.
- Guest speakers (e.g. big tech developers, researchers and experts in adjacent fields)
- Arrange debates on stage (with one side being against digital addiction, and the other side being of the opinion that screens are not addictive)
- Advocating for change, bringing attention to our cause through media coverage
- Invite politicians or policy makers to explain what is currently being done under existing policies
- Documentary movie nights
- Book-club evenings, sharing book recommendations and discussing them
- Collaborate with LSE staff who are working on policy making
- Explore collaboration with other like-minded student organisations
- Share ideas on developing a new non-addictive social media, and plan other solutions
- Arrange monthly challenges, for example “delete Instagram/TikTok from your phone for a week”
- Socials (preferably at one of LSE’s student bars)
For more information and updates, please join our WhatsApp group using the link below:
WhatsApp: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Eb4QxrqQyegJOsRCY7JFvs
If you have any questions or enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
Email: agendasociety@lsesu.org