“Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it” Erin Bury
I just spent three weeks in the Silicon Valley area of California. I toured the Facebook campus and ran through the Google campus as well as wandered around Stanford University – all very nice indeed. Certainly, a lot of money has been spent of the electronic joy in these places – all very high tech and expensive. The average standard of living (SOL) in this area is as high as anywhere in the world for those who can afford it, which must be a large number from I observed considering the large amount of traffic always on the roads. Having sat in some of the ridiculous traffic I have to wonder if the Quality of Life (QOL) is as high as the locals think it is. I have covered that in previous blog posts on this site, so today I will cover something a little more insidious – the reach and intrusion of social media into our lives.
Several years as social media (e.g. Facebook and Google) was making its inroads into our lives, the optimistic promise of connectivity had us all accepting it without question. As with all technology, it has a light side that helps and entertains us, but sadly, the dark side is little realized until afterwards when consequences of its misuse are recognized. Google launched in 1998, with Facebook in 2004 and YouTube in 2005. These as the behemoths of the industry today with many other social media options appearing since then. The dream of social media was that you would only see things of interest to you without all the annoying ‘other’ stuff you once had to remove. Social media works using algorithms that simply recognize the types of sites you visit and slowly ignores the ones you do not visit, or visit rarely. In this way it builds a ‘data set’ of what you like and don’t like and ultimately it creates a ‘profile’ of you as an individual that can be used to determine your core beliefs and attitudes for further streamlining of relevant media to your electronic joy of choice. On average, Facebook for example, can have as many as 70,000 data points that describe you. Every time you do a ‘like,’ a ‘dislike’, or a ‘love’ for a post, or post a cute kitten video, or repost a political slogan that appeals to you, gives Facebook more data about you. Just by using a social media platform you have given your permission for the creators to collect and store your data.
Back in 2004, Sociology researchers wondered about the potential adverse consequences of social media. They have since published numerous academic studies outlining the dangers and changes because of social media to how we live and how it intrudes in all manner of our lives with potential long-term and serious consequences. The Millennial generation especially, are showing clear signs of reduced ability to interact in face-face interactions. Addiction to social media is another side-effect with all the characteristics to the mind of drug addiction. The ‘need’ to be in constant contact has also been implicated in increased accidents (from walking into things to death from cashing cars while using smart phones) with all social media users. The one study that caught my eye back in 2008 was one that showed how the algorithms’ used to give you what you want to see also create polarization in our beliefs, attitudes, and even behaviors. There are numerous studies, and some good TED talks, covering this problem. I noticed many years ago that when a friend and I were first using Facebook, we entered the same search terms and yet both got different websites listed that pertained to our inquiries. I noted that my sites were more spiritual and environmentally focused, while my friend who is more business inclined got more business and money related sites. I looking through the academic literature we found studies that confirmed this observation. Even if you start out centrist, you will find that the search result sites that pertain to your interest get increasingly polarized. Indeed, the only way to get any balance in what you are finding through your searches, you need to actively look at sites that are not in your interest zone and even actively look at the opposing viewpoints. Confuses the hell out of the algorithym’s as it must broaden your ‘interest’ profile within the database. Sadly, most users do not look at anything, except what is in their interest and so can be more easily pegged into broad categories of beliefs. Having said that, however, those people like myself that look at varied perspectives find themselves being pegged as inconsistent. This causes the algorithym to conclude that the user’s beliefs are not fixed and therefore are manipulatable. This group has a name – ‘the persuadables’.
While I have no doubt that I am pegged in this category, I cannot actually find out what data they have on me, since the data that has been collected on me is held privately within the social media platform databases. I could go to court and sue them to access my data but that seems like a lengthy and costly process. As a true skeptical thinker (see much earlier post Skepticism), I look at multiple sides of a polarized issue, but alas, most others in the persuadables category are not fixed in their beliefs or attitudes and rarely do in-depth reading, apparently preferring sound-bites that appeal to them. And sound bites is what social media does very well. If you are getting the sense that I am leading you to the notion that all this data can be used to manipulate people, then you are correct. In the next post I will outline how this data has, and continues to be, used to manipulate our lives in ways that affect us all with serious consequences for the future. TBC……………………
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