#LDS15 VIDEO: “Put the Internet Into Products — Not Products on the Internet”

“How we use these devices and how we examine our behavior is really important, because your life is now officially a platform. And if your life is a platform, how you live your life is going to become very important.” That was Chris Dancy, a technologist and extreme life-hacker, during a presentation at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit earlier this month.

Dancy has spent the past few years collecting information about nearly every aspect of his life, from what he eats and where he walks to his blood pressure and finances. During the presentation, Dancy warned that as companies increasingly design products around personal behavior, the relationships between privacy and convenience will blur.

“The big companies are turning our behavior into the new user interface,” said Dancy. “We call this convenience, you sometimes call it privacy… but you will trade away your privacy for convenience every time.”

Instead of solving human problems with technology, said Dancy, design needs to shift to solve technology problems with humanity. “Design for contemplation, not attention,” he argued. “Put the internet into your products, not your products into the internet.”