Technologies built in good faith

Your mobile phone vibrates, displays notifications and makes sounds. Time to take the pill prescribed by the doctor; go to the gym to burn a specific number of calories; walk for an hour to supplement deficient vitamin D; go to bed to sleep long enough; start meditating to reduce stress. Can the apps of the future be effective, but also transparent, ethical and based on values important for people instead of using psychological tricks?

dopamine as a source of market success An effective app does not let you forget about it. It must fight for our limited attention while competition from other apps grows. The most successful apps use the principles of behavioral psychology to get us hooked. Dopamine increases automatically every time someone likes our photo on Facebook or Instagram. The level of this happiness neurotransmitter is regulated in the brain by the dopamine system. The more likes under a selfie, the greater the satisfaction. When a message on Twitter is popular, it increases our sense of worth and the impression of social acceptance. This is the main reason behind the success of social media. Other mobile apps must also play on our emotions and needs - otherwise they end up in the recycling bin like the vast majority of downloaded apps.

This power of technology over us is ethically ambiguous and can lead to many negative effects in real life. This is different in the case of health apps. They are mainly about turning a single

healthy behavior into a permanent habit. Our mobile phone is becoming a source of motivation and discipline, reminding and helping us to maintain proper weight and regularly run or go to the gym.

Fixing errors of the technological revolution Unhealthy habits are not easy to change. Our brain does not feel equal pleasure from eating a hamburger with fries and having a salad. The former provides a large dose of energy and rewards us with a feeling of pleasure. For many of us, an evening in front of the TV on the couch is more attractive than exercising in the gym. Both a healthy meal and training give results after a few weeks, which does not motivate us. The eternal hunger of the brain has its advantages - the evolution programmed this energy-absorbing organ to consume calories that guarantee survival and development. But calories were not so easy to obtain in the past - you had to hunt for meat or look for and gather edible plants. Today, we can get everything in the store across the street, without restrictions, which leads to energy imbalance, causing an epidemic of obesity and overweight.

The same goes for sleep - specialists recommend that a healthy rest should last 7 to 9 hours. But in the world of many possibilities and artificial light, sleep has become a waste of time. However, we still need it as much as 10,000 years ago. We are built this way as humans. This new technology is to help us return to healthy habits. In other words: we are trying to fix the negative effects of the first (steam energy), second (electricity) and third (computerization) industrial revolution with the innovations of the fourth industrial revolution (artificial intelligence). As it turns out, all shortcuts and trends are as illusory as the wonderful power of vitamin supplements. Is the solution that provided by digital therapies in the form of apps which do not have direct side effects like drugs?

Coach or manipulator? Today, the physical activity of an average city dweller is negligible. We don’t have to walk - we drive cars. We don’t have to hunt - we spend the whole day working at our desk, and spend the money earned on food and other goods. We don’t have to go to sleep when it gets dark - the Internet and television ensure our entertainment in artificial light. Progress will continue to disturb the structure of the

»Technologies that primarily help maintaining health and preventing disease should be made responsibly and in harmony with human nature.«

human body and brain, which just cannot keep up. Like in the case of climate change, nobody expects that everyone will stop eating meat, drive cars, and fly on vacation all of a sudden. Damage that has already been done can be repaired by creating alternative energy sources, human and environmentally-friendly smart technologies. It is a pity that we have realized this so late.

The process should be similar in healthcare and there is still time to develop new solutions wisely. Technologies that primarily help maintaining health and preventing disease should be made responsibly and in harmony with human nature, their autonomy as a social unit, and freedom. Without resorting to dubious psychological tricks and mechanisms that control us instead of helping us. In an ethical way, with the participation of doctors and teams of medical experts in a given field. The question arises, what would an ethically developed mobile app look like in practice to optimally care about physical activity? Should it sense our emotions and ask about our needs, moods and worries? Understand our laziness and convince us instead of imposing daily limits to complete, often leading to frustration when the objective was not achieved? Or maybe it would allow you to compete not only virtually, but also in the real world, making it easier to find a partner for morning jogging or the gym? Ultimately, it would decide by itself to enter the sleep mode after the new sporting habit has been established for good. So as not to unnecessarily burden the user with digital noise. Perhaps it should include other responsibilities, such as looking after children, and suggest other alternatives to the gym? There are countless ideas.

The balance between human and technology In the age of mass digitization, we must ask ourselves what we expect from technology. Because there are plenty of examples of irresponsible revolutions, with the abovementioned climate change at the forefront. In my opinion, mobile apps designed in a responsible and harmonious way will become more trusted and popular over time. This is because they offer values that are close to us. These will be more and more important, as in an increasingly complex world people want to have control over technology instead of being controlled. There is nothing wrong with the developers making money on mobile health apps. But such tools should be transparent and based on scientific knowledge. After all, what good does it do when the obsession with diet caused by an app leads to unhealthy and excessive use of the phone to see if we are within the daily norm of calories consumed. The new generation of mobile apps will remind you of the need to return to healthy, high-quality organic food produced locally, which not only tastes better, but also guarantees sustainable farming and supports sustainable entrepreneurship. In the world tired of apps persistently fighting over our attention (and their survival on the market), “digital biological health” is the future.

One of the oldest applications installed on my smartphone is Forest. Its function is to limit time spent with the phone. The more time I spend offline without using my phone, the faster my virtual forest grows. A certain number of points finances the planting of a real tree. This is the real value that makes me go back to Forest with pleasure, without intrusive notifications, likes or false sense of social responsibility and acceptance. Value-based technologies have a future. 