Manipulation-as-a-service…not good.
What is manipulation-as-a-service?
What I consider manipulation-as-a-service is a popular package of tools being used by tech companies to manipulate a person’s ability to make self-preserving, informed decisions by the use of AI and recommendation algorithms. The justification behind implementing these tools is to reduce the number of choices we have, as consumers, by sorting through our previous decisions and guessing what we would like to see and how to fill our timelines based on those decisions. It keeps you stuck in the past and/or in the status quo and, if you don’t keep your mind about yourself and know to go click pages that you wouldn’t normally visit, you’re gonna go deep, down a rabbit hole and get psychologically stuck there with whomever or whatever (because bots are being used to intentionally keep you where the creator wants) you decided to surround yourself with.
“ In a study drawing data from a sample of adolescents and their parents throughout the United States, Barry, Sidoti, Briggs, Reiter, and Lindsey (2017) found that social media use is moderately and positively related to adolescent-reported fear of missing out and loneliness as well as with parent-reported hyperactivity/impulsivity, anxiety, and depression. Similarly, in a national survey of U.S. young adults, Primack et al. (2017) found that compared with individuals who use 0 to 2 social media platforms, individuals who use 7 to 11 social media platforms have substantially higher odds of having increased levels of depression and anxiety symptoms”.
SOURCE: Mesfin A. Bekalu, PhD, Rachel F. McCloud, ScD, K. Viswanath, PhD (2019): Association of Social Media Use With Social Well-Being, Positive Mental Health, and Self-Rated Health: Disentangling Routine Use From Emotional Connection to Use
Mo Money! Mo Money! Mo Money!
Tech companies behave like social activity is authentic human behavior and I totally disagree with that behavior. I believe there is nothing authentic about anyone’s online activity in 2020 especially when it comes to young adults and children. The concept of ‘social media’ in itself is an issue because there’s too much anonymity, inauthenticity, and status associated with the concept of ‘friends’. And because of that, today’s young people are growing up in parallel universes (IRL & online) that are slowly caving in on themselves via recommenders and, this default behavior, puts users at a disadvantage and gives marketers and tech companies the power to choose how we see our world.
My argument here is that I believe these tech companies know that user behavior isn’t authentic behavior and, if true, that would mean that they are (1) knowingly using ‘skewed’ user data that is based on social cues, (2) using the data derived from analyzing that data (i.e. data on how to manipulate users that follow certain social cues) to, (3) manipulate those cues in ways that best benefit their paid marketers and they’re best interests.
Consequently, at a time in young people’s lives when they should be figuring out who they are as individuals, they are being bombarded with the side effects of clicks they made while trying to find or fit into a social circle or explore something different which is a behavior we have been able to do safely in the past.
They’re doing it so I can too!
I’m saddened by the pervasive growth and popularity of manipulation-as-a-service and that it’s being forced on the public with complete disregard for the effect it’s going to have on today’s children's and young adult’s psychological development. Thankfully, there are companies attempting to work within this system in an attempt to undo some of the damage. Tech giants like Google claim to want to help undo some of the effects of the psychological manipulation indirectly by deploying more algorithms instead of working to stop the practice, which is just another form of gaslighting their users (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/02/01/googles-mission-impossible-use-ai-to-detoxify-the-internet/#365a87144e5a).
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with capitalism. I personally believe it works great when things are done with empathy and integrity. The problem is that entities are intentionally manipulating the minds of the public (mostly children without consent) and it should be looked at as predatory commercial practices. Companies have found themselves in spaces where they can only get attention with clickbait(lies), gaslighting, and psychological manipulation. It’s cheating to get ahead and I don’t want my son to go against everything in his heart to be able to compete in this new world.
