Abstract
The main focus of this research portfolio is to address consequences of the recent rise of overreliance on technology. More specifically, the capstone technical report is centered around combating the decreased ability to focus for contiguous periods of time without intermittent smartphone usage, which has been increasingly observed amongst young adults and teenagers. It tackles this issue through the development of an iOS application, which effectively forces users to focus without impulsively checking their smartphones or specific apps, and encourages them to return to the app for consistent use by means of a gamified reward system. The STS research paper applies a sociotechnological lens to analyze recent discourse surrounding the widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) tooling within the web development industry, enumerating the threats of reckless usage: namely, algorithmic homogenization, and creative and cultural suppression. It highlights how current industry trends threaten engineers with a loss of agency and creative thinking, and describes the inbuilt ethical concerns of large language models (LLMs). Both topics relate to the cognitive disengagement and offloading that everyday people may be unknowingly engaging in on a daily basis, both within and outside of their professional lives. They also discuss the inherent problems caused by the modern paradigm of reckless technology adoption and usage, and highlight the drastically negative effects on traditionally human aspects of creativity, self-expression, and cognitive independence.
The group capstone project specifically targeted the issue of mobile device distraction, which has become a pervasive problem that negatively affects productivity, learning, and overall well-being for users around the globe. Although existing digital wellness tools limit distractions through timers or application blocking, there is little allure to these applications beyond a desire to limit phone use, often relying solely upon users’ willpower and commitment to healthier working habits. The technical report presents Reel It In, an iOS application that ties focus sessions to a gamified reward system in order to promote habitual use, as a potential solution. By integrating directly with Apple’s Screen Time framework, the app allows users to select applications to be blocked for a selected amount of time. Successfully completed focus sessions reward the user with in-game stamina, which can be used to fish and grow their personal collection. The application was evaluated via beta testing to assess both focus effectiveness and gameplay satisfaction. Results indicate that users experienced reduced distraction during focus sessions and found the gameplay enjoyable. These findings suggest that gamification can serve as an effective mechanism for improving adherence to digital wellness tools.
The STS research paper shifted this focus from mobile devices to AI tools, and the threat that widespread adoption of LLMs within software engineering — more specifically, the frontend/web development industry — poses to the diversity of cultural and creative expression online. Although frontend development was already displaying signs of homogenization and creative decline over the past 20 years, AI has only exacerbated the issue on multiple levels: between businesses and their clients, engineers and their managers, and most importantly between the software products and end consumers. Key among these trends is the impact on frontend engineers themselves; overvaluation of AI tools has made it dangerously easy for developers to opt for the path of least resistance, taking a “hollowed mind” approach to programming and effectively handing over the reins to their tools. By abstracting away their own thought processes and ideas, engineers allow LLMs to operate with “creative freedom,” which falls flat due to the nature of how LLMs are trained and inevitably results in bland, non-representational online experiences. The paper finds that in its current state, frontend development is trending towards continued reckless AI use and the negative effects that come with it: suppressed online cultural diversity, cognitive decline and creative stagnation on a global scale.
By working on these two projects over the course of my fourth year, I not only learned more about the burden of responsible, culturally sensitive development that aspiring software engineers must shoulder in this new generation, but also put those tenets into practice by developing a fully functional iOS application built with the end user in mind. As someone who aspires to one day specialize in frontend engineering, these projects provided a meaningful and more human-centric perspective to supplement the technical education I have received throughout my undergraduate career, and forced me to reevaluate the role of AI and LLMs in my development process. As I prepare to enter the workforce, I will keep these concepts and warnings in mind, and do my best to enact change however I am able.
