Q&A: Ex-Googler Harris on how tech 'downgrades' humans

Tristan Harris wants to reverse the harmful effects he believes technology has had on all of us.

Harris, a former Google design ethicist, first rose to national awareness after a presentation he gave within Google in 2013 spread throughout the industry. In it, he argued that many tech products were designed to be addictive, causing people to spend too much time on them and distracting them from living their lives. He urged designers to alter their approach.

Harris spent more than two years pushing change within Google, but says he couldn't get traction. So he quit and started a movement called Time Well Spent, which eventually pushed companies such as Apple and Google to build screen time usage metrics and tools into their phones.

He has since widened his focus, having decided that many issues facing society today are actually connected and can be traced, at least partly, to the design of technologies we use every day.

The goal of his organization, the Center for Humane Technology, is to reverse human "downgrading," or the idea that technology is shortening our attention spans, pushing people toward more extreme views and making it harder to find common ground. In short: technology has caused humanity to worsen, and Harris wants to help fix it.

Harris recently spoke to the Associated Press about his work, the tech industry's progress so far, and why all hope is not lost. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q: Could you tell us the important ideas of your work?

This isn't about addiction, it's not about time. It's about what we call "human downgrading." It's a phrase that we came up with to describe something we don't think people are acknowledging as a connected system.

Technology is causing a set of seemingly disconnected things —shortening...