Can technology be good for us?
I was 11 years old when my parents and I immigrated to the United States from Ukraine. My husband and Marco Polo Co-founder, Michał, first came to the US from Poland as a high school exchange student. We’re a multicultural family with relatives and friends scattered all over the world, multiple time zones away.
Michał and I met at Microsoft, where I worked as a program manager on communication tools that millions of people used every day, such as MSN Messenger and Hotmail. We had both been working in Silicon Valley and the startup world for a number of years when we had our daughters. Very quickly, our priorities in both life and business started to shift. We wanted to bring more happiness into the world. How could we do that? After a ton of research, we landed on our purpose: helping people feel close.
Our family and friends were spread out far and wide, and keeping in touch with them as our daughters said their first words and took their first steps was crucial for us. But it always felt like a chore – text messages and pictures were a poor substitute for conversation, and scheduling video calls became an exhausting transatlantic logistical puzzle.
Marco Polo ended up being our answer. We built the product with our daughters in mind, knowing that if it was good for our family, it could make a big difference for others, building and strengthening connections across the world. This is what defines us as a company. As we grow, we always think about how we make Marco Polo good for our community’s well-being, and measure whether we are delivering on our promise to help people feel close.
What does “good-for-you” technology mean?
For me, good-for-you technology does several things:
It respects our privacy. It does not treat us like a product, extracting our information to monetize and sell to third parties.
It respects our agency. It doesn’t manipulate us to keep our eyes glued to the screen, scrolling for eternity to maximize a company’s profits.
Most importantly, a good-for-you product contributes to our well-being in a real way – and those responsible measure that impact, holding themselves accountable.
Good-for-you tech is about well-being
In the tech world, a lot of the conversation around best practices focuses on privacy and security, and for good reason. Those are key values that we also hold at Marco Polo. But what often gets missed, and what we think should be just as important, is attending to our individual and collective well-being.
In March 2020, as the world was shutting down, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned in The Atlantic: “Relationships with other people are the foundation on which humans build healthy, fulfilling lives, so we must safeguard them.” These ties were already under a lot of strain, and Covid was endangering them further. In 2023, three years into a pandemic that ravaged the social lives of so many communities, Murthy declared “an epidemic of loneliness.” The first step to start fixing the problem, he said, was to rebuild social connection.
Many point to technology as one of the main contributors to this deterioration of social ties. And there is some truth to that. Social media started as a way to connect people, but over the years it became about the quantity of interactions – the addictive pings of dopamine offered by new followers, likes, comments, and reposts – and not about the quality of connection. It created an illusion that we were communicating with each other when we actually weren’t. Getting a “like” or a “💪” isn't the same as hearing your friend's voice and seeing their face as they support you and cheer you on. All those pings were not and are not building authentic relationships.
But the thing is, technology can provide authentic connection, it can be magical! As I’ve seen with my own family, and as we’ve heard is the case for many in our community, technology can build bridges over vast distances and erase time zones. It can help us nurture relationships, which are key to human happiness, as research has proven again and again. One of my favorite reads on this is Harvard’s survey on human happiness that followed respondents for 80 years!
What can you do?
I often hear talk about "Big Tech" as if it’s an almighty force. That sentiment is true, but only to an extent – users are not powerless. Here are several things we all can do to help make tech better for everyone:
Do the research. Find out more about the platforms you are using. Consult resources such as the Center For Humane Technology or the US Surgeon General’s advisory on social connection. Start asking questions about how tech companies are spending their money. Do they care about users’ well-being? At Marco Polo, for instance, we talk to our community, regularly checking in and doing research to see if we are delivering on our promise.
Ask for answers. As a consumer, you have a right to know how the leaders of the platforms you use think about their impact on your life. What kind of research are they doing? Ask them to share those findings publicly.
Demand funding for government research. Our political leaders have ensured that we know what ingredients and additives go into our food, or that our medications are tested in rigorous trials. We know a lot about what goes into our body – but what about what is served to our minds?
Please share in comments your ideas about what we can all do to create a world where technology serves us and our well-being. My hope is that this sparks conversation and advances a movement around technology that is good for you!
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