Activities of Kateřina KONEČNÁ related to 2023/2043(INI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on addictive design of online services and consumer protection in the EU single market
Amendments (10)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 1 a (new)
Citation 1 a (new)
– having regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the General comment No. 25 (2021) to the Convention on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment,
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas many digital services, such as online games, social media, streaming services for films, series or music, online marketplaces or web shops and dating apps are designed to keep users on the platform for as long as possible, maximise their activity, network development or content production, so as to maximise the time and money they spend there and the data collected; whereas consequently many online services are designed to be as addictive as possible; whereas the terms ‘manipulative design’, ‘addictive design’ or ‘behavioural design’ of online services describe features that lead to behaviour- related risks and harms, including forms of digital addiction, such as, ‘excessive or harmful internet use’, ‘smartphone addiction’, ‘technological or internet addiction’, ‘social media addiction’; whereas there is a growing consensus among academics that phenomena, such as ‘social media addiction’ exist;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas 16-24 year-olds spend an average of over seven hours a day on the internet; whereas one in four children and young people display ‘problematic’ or ‘dysfunctional’ smartphone use, meaning behavioural patterns mirroring addiction; whereas research suggesthows that problematic smartphone use continues to rismany children rarely disconnect from social media, use it constantly throughout the day and feel insecure without their mobile phone; whereas research also suggests that the rise in mental health problems in adolescents might be related to excessive social media use; whereas social media pressure has been identified as one of the top five causes of mental health difficulties for children; whereas gaming addiction is recognised as a mental health disorder by the World Health Organisation.
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas addictive design can be seen to have a negative impact on everyone, not just individuals showing problematic usage patterns; whereas addictive design, especially of smartphones and social media, makes it hard to focus on the task in hand owing to distractions such as messages and notifications constantly disrupting peoples’ concentration, even at school or while driving; whereas the addictive design of online services leads to increased pressure to perform and social pressure to be permanently online and connected, increasing the risk of stress and burnout; whereas consumers online are increasingly confronted with an information overload and excessive sensorial stimuli throughout the day, constraining their cognitive ability, and user interfaces offer only limited control over their data; whereas the time people spend behind screens is time not spent being active, moving, being outside, or shutting down and relaxing, all of which are associated with physical and mental well-being and are notably paramount for children’s development; whereas adolescents who spend a small amount of time on electronic communication are generally the happiest; whereas people that stop using social media for a week experience significant improvements in well-being;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas on average, adolescent girls spend more time online, on smartphones, social media and texting than boys; whereas boys spend more time on gaming and electronic devices in general; whereas girls show a stronger association between screen time and poor mental health than boys and are more than twice as likely to have clinically relevant levels of depressive symptoms than boys; whereas addictive online services such as such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram are often targeted at minors or anyway accessible to them; whereas all services likely to be accessed by minors must be safe for them and consider the best interest of the minor;
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas addictive design features are often linked to psychosocial patterns playing on consumers’ psychological needs, vulnerabilities and desires, such as social belonging, social anxiety, fear of missing out (encouraged by information being available only temporarily, such as ‘stories’, ‘is typing…’), network effects, the urge to finish tasks in a flow, even if interrupted (endless scrolling, taking a number of seconds to load your newsfeed, flashes of high-relevance content that are immediately hidden as the newsfeed reloads) and loss of self-control; whereas design features can be addictive for different reasons, such as an intermittent variable reward, leading to a dopamine surge, just like the dynamics of slot machines, such as push notifications, or social reciprocity leading to chemical brain reactions, where on the one hand people receive social gratification, such as likes, and on the other hand people feel social pressure to respond to people, such as with read-receipts; whereas children are more vulnerable to those features, especially in earlier developmental stages;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital L
Recital L
L. whereas the Digital Services Act (DSA) introduces provisions against the use of ‘dark patterns’ but these are limited to choice architecture and influences choices and do not address behavioural design that is addictive per se, moreover they are limited in scope as they only apply to online platforms, not to all online services, while these provisions only apply to cases not covered by the General Data Protection Regulation and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive; whereas the AI Act4 seeks to ban AI systems that deploy subliminal features but is limited to systems that ‘are purposefully manipulative or deploy deceptive techniques’; _________________ 4 Proposal for a regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence act) (COM(2021)0206).
Amendment 80 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to present legislation against addictive design and to ensure a robust enforcement of all existing legislation on the matter, notably the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), with the highest possible degree of transparency; urges the Commission in its review of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive5 (UCPD), the Consumer Rights Directive6 and Unfair Contract Terms Directive7 (Fitness cCheck) to pay particular attention to and tackle the growing issues around the addictive, behavioural and manipulative design of online services; _________________ 5 Directive 2005/29/EC of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market (OJ L 149, 11.6.2005, p. 22). 6 Directive 2011/83/EU of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights (OJ L 304, 22.11.2011, p. 64). 7 Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts (OJ L 95, 21.4.1993, p. 29)., and to ensure an effective and coherent enforcement of consumer law with special consideration of vulnerable groups such as children, notably through the reversal of the burden of proof on traders to demonstrate compliance in cases of suspected breach of children’s rights;
Amendment 98 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Demands that a revision of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive should take into account consumers’ susceptibility to the exploitation of the unequal power in the trader-consumer relationship resulting from internal and external factors beyond the consumer’s control; stresses that the autonomy of consumers should not be undermined by traders’ commercial practices, in particular the design and operation of the interface, with the burden being placed on the trader to demonstrate compliance in cases of such strong knowledge and power asymmetries;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Urges the Commission to promote and ensure ethical design of online services; calls on the Commission to create a list of good practices of design features that are not addictive or manipulative and ensure users are fully in control and can take conscious and informed actions online without facing an information overload; stresses that policy actions in this area should not place a burden on consumers, notably vulnerable users such as children, but address the harm caused by the businesses; notes the best practices of ‘think before you share’, turning all notifications off by default, more neutral online recommendations, such as those based on chronological order or increased user-control, up-front choice between colour and greyscale apps, or warnings when users have spent more than 15 minutes or 30 minutes on a specific service;