We set out to write this book because we both felt trapped by smartphones constantly clamoring for our attention and constantly pulling us away from what was happening here and now in the real world. If you're with us this far, we guess you must have felt the same, and like us wanted to understand if this increasing reliance on smartphones and social media really is a good idea.

We have sifted through hundreds of studies, articles and papers to get an overview of what is really going on––and hopefully you will agree with us that the case we present is persuasive and compelling: smartphones and social media do indeed interfere with the basic functions of human cognition, and uncontrolled and mainly impulsive use can (and probably will) lead to issues such as stress, sleep disturbance, lack of focus and concentration, issues with bonding and socializing as well as subtly shifting your perception of the world around you (cognitive bias).

If your friends and family ask you what OFFLINE is all about we hope you will share with them some of the insights we have presented in this book. Here is a brief recap:

1. Large tech companies use addictive designs to keep you spending as much time as possible on their platforms and these designs interfere with a number of basic cognitive functions.
2. The use of “brain hacks” has significant side effects––triggered impulsive behavior while reducing your ability to concentrate, focus and stay on track.
3. Human beings are social animals by evolutionary design and social media does not deliver on “real” grouping, bonding or sharing because these functions are fueled by biological processes that require actual person-to-person interactions.
4. Technoference is at play everywhere––in the playground, around the dinner table, at your local coffee shop and even in traffic. But when we escape into the digital domain instead of interacting directly with kids, family and friends something valuable is lost.
5. The speed of transformation we are witnessing is unparalleled—75 percent of people on the planet are connected and nearly half use social media. We have no idea what the long-term consequences of this shift will be in terms of human social skills, empathy and so on.

As we pointed out in the first chapter of this book, the addictive design mechanisms you see in the digital domain are the result of massive and intense competition over access to an extremely valuable commodity––your attention—and the tools used in this competition have a number of unintended, but nonetheless significant and severe side effects. However, please do remember, we're not saying smartphones and social media are bad––we are simply pointing out that there are potential side effects and that you will get more enjoyment and less complications if you think about how you want to use this technology––if you decide when, how often and how much!

The authors of this book are both proponents of free markets and competition––we believe technological development brings growth and helps eradicate poverty––but we also believe that we need to be careful about how we use technology that interacts with us on very fundamental levels.

In essence we hope to see a shift in the near future––a shift towards a more human-centric technology, that is technology designed to help humans augment and boost our skills, knowledge, competencies and abilities by working with our biology and psychology instead of against it.

To our great satisfaction we have noted, that Apple and Google have already begun implementing more human-friendly default settings for their operating systems, allowing users to become more consciously aware of their digital habits.^1,2 But we still need to see the world's largest social media platform—Facebook—live up to the moral and ethical responsibility that comes with being able³ to directly affect how more than 2 billion users think and feel.

We need technology that helps us become better humans—not technology that makes us less civilized by destroying our self-control.

Will you help us deliver a message to the tech giants?

In all probability, the leaders of Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder and so on, have all begun to realize that change is coming––that their users want technology that does not stress them out or make them feel miserable.

But you can help encourage them to make these changes faster.

On the next page you can see a letter we've written to five of the most powerful CEOs on the planet, asking them to put more focus into making their products human-centric.

We would be very grateful if you would share this letter with others.

If you go to our website www.humansbeforetech.com you can print out copies as well as share by email or to social media––and you can also sign our petition for these companies to take their civic responsibilities more seriously.

It's time to make a change.

Dear Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.

Thank you for bringing wonderful technology into our world. Technology that helps us learn, find, shop, share and connect with each other. The world is a better place thanks to you—your success has created hundreds of thousands of jobs and given billions of people opportunities and possibilities they did not have before. However, as you are surely aware, the competition for securing customers and users' attention has had unintended side effects such as stress, sleep disturbances, decision fatigue, bonding issues and so forth.

As we humans continue to increase our use of smartphones, tablets and social media, it becomes increasingly important that you help counter these side effects by making your products and services more human-centric. The technologies that will lead us into the coming centuries are a force for good but must be tempered by a greater focus on ensuring that their use is safe and without unintended biological, psychological or social consequences.

We think you should work together to set up a well-funded independent organization tasked with studying the impact of smartphones, tablets, VR, augmentative technologies, social media and so forth on human cognitive function and social coherence—that you should task this organization to publish findings and recommendations for making technology more human- centric—and that you should pledge to take these recommendations seriously and strive to integrate them into future versions of the technology you market.

In doing so, you show support for a new paradigm of human-centric technology, and will make not just us, but literally billions of people more satisfied with being your customers and users.