The creators from Facebook are arguing that social media is ruining society. These tools are causing addictions, they are programming you with information you desire, and are looping you back in by engaging you with content you crave. These patterns or sharing pictures and “getting likes” release dopamine in your brain and why you keep coming back to social media. Essentially these “hackers” are using psychology to brain wash you. Why is this bad?
- No civil discourse
- No cooperation
- Misinformation
- Desensitization with the real world
You are being manipulated by social media.
Its not just social media but its how the search engines, youtube, advertisers, and even some news sites operate. They’re all designed now to tailor everything so it only “shows you what you want to see”. People are less likely to be seeing diverse, conflicting, unbiased, or even factually-correcting information once they’re inside their own profiled bubble and become more and more polarized.
Facebook algorithms decide what you see and what you don’t.
How True Is This?
Learning how to brain wash people has been around since man started. Ever hear of the Bible? I wouldn’t argue that Social Media and the Bible bring forth the same ideals so let’s not draw that conclusion, but people are told a lot things. I’m not sure why anyone is surprised that people are using a tool that can reach 2 billion people for financial gain to manipulate the public. People like to think it’s free will, but when I’m being shown over and over again what I search for, isn’t that a bit one sided? Here’s a funny screen shot from Google Chrome. Notice that the deleting cookies says “signs you out of most sites”. Why would anyone WANT to do that?
It’s those precious cookies we can’t be clearing.
Do I worry about this? Ehhh. I’m not a huge Facebook user. If I think I write a good post on this blog, I’ll share it from time to time so I can get my satisfaction from my friends and the accolades I deserve but never receive. My satisfaction comes from the conversations I have with people about my blog…IN REAL LIFE. A newly acquired friend said to me, “I didn’t know you had a blog, I liked the well thought out gifs.” That’s it. That’s all I need from time to time to keep me going. I don’t need the 22 likes on a picture I share. I use my Snapchat to an exclusive 30 people who I don’t mind see my drunk shenanigans but I would never post them on Facebook. I’m not sure that means I’m being manipulated or not. I do however think it’s smart to be aware of the tools that you are using and what they are trying to do to you.
On a final note, this is VR chat. Just watch until the end. I’m not even sure what country this is partaking in but I wasn’t sure what I was watching. This will be our new universe!
I tend to think the truth is revealed!