Social dilemma
Social dilemma was a great movie but really opened up my eyes about the issues we are facing in the age of internet and social networks. We are being tracked, targeted, followed and forced into echo chambers, being stripped of our true selves. What not to love in it?
Obviously when an app is for free than you are the product like the saying goes, it’s especially true regarding the social media apps. They roughly are based on the same principles, you register for free (understand; you pay for it with your data), you are using it, the apps algorithms and artificial intelligence mapping your character and based on that advertising for you and using in the meantime a wild range of addictive methods like scrolling, swiping, using stories, reels to keep you hooked up on the screen and to increase your screen time and to show you more and more targeted advertisements.
When you are using these apps they are also tracking your location, you give them access to it when you are accepting their terms and conditions, most times you give them access to your email address, friends list, email list, in the end it is not a coincidence that once you looked up a brand or searched for something, those items popping up for you time to time.
Data is the most traded commidity in the world and yes more traded and more valuable than oil. It is not a coincidence that the tech giants are the most valuable companies in the world, they all trade some sort of data about you. They know you better than you know yourself.
These data helps them predict your behaviour and they can take advantage of it, companies doing it in all sorts of ways, selling you products, forecasting your behaviour in the stock market, targeting you with political messages, encouraging you to participate in events, go to vote, buy insurance, travel packages so on and so fort.
They know you so well that they know your political opinions and they target you at election times when political messages are popping up on your news feed, they lure you into an echo chamber where you will only find likeminded people, opinions that are aligned to your personal beliefs, brands that you like, travel destinations you would like to go to and guess what if you switch your device with your friend you will explore a very different world on the same platform and the reason behind it is the tailor made echo chamber deisgned for the user of that particular device.
Social media is a very dangerous tool to cause global destruction as much as it helps the people.
Nokia we connecting people
You heard the above slogan probably if you were born before 2000, one of the best company statements out there. We are living in a more and more connected world, in the world of 5G, fast internet, it’s easier than ever to connect with people using social media platforms, you can connect with anyone from any part of the world, you can even use internet based dating apps to find your match, however something went wrong, because we ‘humans’ are more lonely than ever before.
Instead of being connected we are getting more far and became lonelier, more depressed and more suicidal. The problem is that might the wires of the social media platforms are wired in a way to hook us up on their apps and services just to sell us out, instead of connecting us to share our joys and opinions, they closed us into echo chambers.
The purpose of this post actually was to share my feelings that accumulated for a while and this movie just pushed me over the edge and convinced me to delete Facebook, actually I didn’t delete my profile, however I got rid off the app on my phone and can’t be bothered to go on the platform on my PC, there’s only two social media platform I left on my phone in use, Instagram and Reddit and actively limiting the use of both and the overall screen time.
I caught myself multiple times just mindlessly scrolling down without any purpose just like an addict and it’s definitely not right, now that I deleted Facebook I feel a bit better but there is still a way to go, I left the messenger to stay connected with friends and family and I guess it will remain, but I can justify that. Minimalism is not a good match, all these social media platforms just trying to force our minds into wants instead of needs and it’s just not right, it’s also not right to be judged or to feel judged and valued based on likes and comments.
Data rights should be human rights and I do think we should be entitled to know our data and it should be illegal to monetize humans and human behaviour to the highest bidder and should be able to retrive our data and know what certain companies know about us exactly and I believe data rights will be a topic for the future and I am sure we will hear about it more and more in the mainstream media. We are entitled to know how are we being monetized.
The less is definitely more, less screen time is more real time.
Your sincerely
To/Minimal
