As technology becomes increasingly pervasive and ubiquitous in everyday life, it begins to strip us of our humanness. This project asks: How can we preserve our humanness in such a technology-centered environment?

Technology Re-envisioning & Humanness Rebuilding investigates the issue from an industry perspective. There are already products designed to help people overcome their addictions to technology and gain back their humanity. But most of these function as attachments to the existing (addictive) products. What if the tech industry took users’ psychological states and social relationships into account when designing new products? 

Inspired by Asimov’s “Three Laws for Robotics,” the “Laws Against Addiction” are created to act as a starting point in the development process. In the context of social media platforms, these laws are introduced to tech designers as a challenge to their standard criteria. Designers are encouraged to create products that reflect care about human beings. Because business plays a crucial role in supporting the design of humane technology products, three new business models are proposed to demonstrate that profit and humanness can co-exist.

This project proves that humane technology can thrive by bringing varied stakeholders into the conversation. Together these stakeholders can achieve their goal of creating tech products that preserve the user’s humanness. www.meilinglu.com