Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive
My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook. Google has a giant attention platform in YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram <i>are</i> attention platforms. I think YouTube will decline a bit as a result of this, but the rest of Google - and the data collection of Android are untouched. If people become less addicted to their phones, they're still going to have their phone when they go to restaurants and take photos of things on their phones, they're just not going to post about it on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or Twitter. Google will still know everything they do now, they'll still be the default photos experience and search experience and maps experience for Android, you'll just spend less time in attention apps like YouTube and Facebook.<p>The real genius is that it fits Apple's brand <i>really</i> well, way better than Google's. If they can make this a serious digital wellness campaign, I could easily see Apple joining in. It won't affect their bottom line and it'll make them look good. And with that, both mobile platforms and ~all of Facebook's user base get nudges to become less addicted to and pay less attention to Facebook.