We all might be spending too much time on social media, but doomscrolling time for teens is getting some court-enforced boundaries, at least on Meta products.
We’ll take a look at what some Virginia Tech officials say that means in the big picture. Another tech innovation with big ramifications, AI, is becoming part of Roanoke College’s curriculum, at no cost.
Hi and welcome to another edition of Tech Briefs, Cardinal News’ weekly roundup of items covering the digital and life sciences landscapes. We go live on Wednesdays. ICYMI, here’s last week’s drone wars-centric version.
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Let’s kick it off with the intersection of music and technology.
Virginia Tech’s New Music + Technology Festival includes ‘a speculative posthuman cranberry bog’
Drosera Obsura mixes animatronics with live vocals and recorded sound, but don’t mistake it for the old Chuck E. Cheese band.
Extended reality (also known as XR), spatial sound, scent and touch happen within “a speculative posthuman cranberry bog,” according to information promoting Virginia Tech’s latest New Music + Technology Festival, so it’s not going to smell like a pizza buffet.
The project, a collaboration between Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology and McGill University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, is set for 8 p.m. Sept. 15 at The Cube, in the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech.
The animatronics, which bring to mind the idea of future-shock robotic kitchen appliances, are fully interactive, according to the university’s School of the Performing Arts.
They’re designed to allow for “live puppeteering — creating a feedback loop where a participant’s movement in VR affects the animatronic’s behavior and vice versa,” the school wrote in a news release. “This evolution redefines immersion and positions the project at the intersection of performance, XR, and robotics.”
The New Music + Technology Festival runs Sept. 14-19 and opens with Virginia Tech Faculty and Friends, featuring violinist John Irrera, pianist Richard Masters, clarinetist Bryce Newcomer, University of Virginia-based flutist Kelly Sulick and others at 8 p.m. Sept. 14 in the Creativity and Innovation District.
The Sandbox at the Center for the Performing Arts, will feature “Wormwood, or dances for the demon AI in the organic apocalypse,” featuring Scotty Hardwig and Zach Duer. These performances, set for Sept. 17-19, explore large language models’ potential “in real-time dance observation and analysis, and the poetic and literary interpretations of an AI witnessing human movement,” the School of Performing Arts wrote.
“The piece paints a portrait of a man enthralled to Wormwood, a digital creature-system that blurs the boundaries of machine, friend, oracle, and parasite.”
All the shows are free, but all on-campus parking requires a parking permit. Go to sopa.vt.edu/events.html for more information.
Virginia Tech expert: Meta settlement marks ‘end of unchecked engagement’ for teens
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed in late August to a $17.1 billion settlement with 47 states that accused the social media giant of fostering social media addiction in teenagers.
The settlement will limit the amount of time teens can spend on Meta platforms and will remove both image filters and push notifications during school hours, among other measures.
Virginia’s share of the settlement is $353 million, Attorney General Jay Jones’ office announced. Jones told reporters recently that a portion of Virginia’s settlement funds will go toward remediating harm caused by social media platforms and supporting social media literacy for parents.
Virginia Tech social media expert Megan Duncan, political communications expert Cayce Myers and online digital privacy and tracking expert Donna Wertalik, in a university news release, discussed benefits and concerns for corporations, governments and users.
Duncan, noting that the settlement was far less than the states had asked for, said the safety and security features are “the most striking.” Consumer advocates for years have been calling for time limits and to remove filters that mimic cosmetic surgery.
The changes address parents’ concerns, “including body image, doomscrolling, and bullying,” Duncan said, adding that there is room for skepticism.
“Many of these features are set to be automatic, bypassed only with express parental permission,” Duncan said in the news release. “But don’t discount the ability of teens to find creative ways around these features or to remake social media culture and etiquette to adapt.”
One aspect of the settlement bans displaying metrics for likes on a post for children younger than 18. Duncan expects that youth culture will find a different metric that’s still visible to the audience, and emphasize that.
“Teens like to feel popular!” she said.
The settlement was with Meta only, but it sets up what the news release calls a “pressure campaign” on TikTok and YouTube. Duncan said a federal, industry-wide requirement for safety features would be more effective, because just singling out one, or a few, apps, will drive users to others instead.
Myers said that Meta chose the best strategy, given the number of cases centred on mental health of young users. The settlement might pause the number of lawsuits, but its real impact is the design shift, “which is the end of unchecked engagement for younger users,” she said in the release.
The daily time limits, blocks during nighttime and school hours, filter blocks and changes to feed personalization will also be assessed by an independent auditor.
“The long-term impact will be a Meta experience for under 18 years old that will look dramatically different than what it is today,” Myers said.
He added: “Lawmakers, particularly at the state level in the U.S. and in the European Union, will likely continue to push for more restrictive guardrails on social media use.”
Wertalik said the school-hours notification curfew is the one to watch.
“It’s a direct hit to re-engagement and how this will impact long term,” she said. “But all of it depends on knowing which users are minors, and that’s where the privacy bill comes due. ‘Privacy by design’ should be built-in but rarely is with development of social media apps.
“The caveat? The agreement still lets Meta define what counts as harmful to minors. A company grading its own homework isn’t providing neutral oversight.”
Kids will easily find workarounds, and further enforcement will push Meta toward ID uploads and facial age estimation.
“And that’s the trade nobody’s naming,” Wertalik said. “We protect children by collecting more sensitive data about children.”
The settlement hinges in part on Meta rivals’ willingness to voluntarily cooperate. Meta’s two-hour usage cap is to run five years, but if Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube sign comparable terms, the cap shrinks to 60 minutes and extends to 10 years, she said.
“That’s a floor with an expiration date, not a standard,” she said.
It’s a “monumental moment in privacy and online tracking” that Generation Alpha will view negatively, she said.
“But Generation Beta is who this is about. Born last year, they’ll never know a feed without a curfew, and defaults set before you arrive don’t feel like rules … That’s the most durable thing here, but only if the caps remain in place.”
Otherwise, “we’ve written a protection for a generation too young to benefit from it,” she said.
Roanoke College teams with Google to offer free AI training, career certificates
A partnership between Roanoke College and Google’s AI for Education Accelerator means that students, faculty and staff at Roanoke College have free access to training and certification, according to a news release from the college.
[Disclosure: Google is one of our donors through its Google News Initiative, which helped support our expansion in the New River Valley. Donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
The tech giant’s education accelerator for accredited colleges and universities, designed to foster workforce readiness, aligns with two Roanoke College goals: preparing students for their first post-graduation job and equipping them with skills that will serve them later in their careers, according to the release.
“A Roanoke College liberal arts education already equips our learners with the skills to ask good questions and spot a bad answer when they see one,” Ryan King, the college’s chief of staff and innovation officer, said in the news release. “Pairing that with practical AI skills, at no cost, means our learners graduate knowing how to use these tools and when to question what they produce.”
Google is committed to providing its most advanced AI training at no cost, the release reads.
“This program builds on years of us working together with universities to help students prepare for exciting careers,” said Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google, in the release.
The accelerator teaches foundational AI skills, effective prompting techniques and responsible AI usage. Students who use it will also learn how to use AI tools to build resumes and practice job interviews, among other skills.
Roanoke students, faculty and staff also have the option to earn Google Career Certificates in a variety of in-demand fields, including cybersecurity, information technology support and data analytics. This program has helped more than one million people get the training they need to land higher-paying jobs, according to the news release.
