Tag: socialmedia

  • Smartphones, Tablets and How Social Media Hijacks Our Minds

    Smartphones, Tablets and How Social Media Hijacks Our Minds

    It’s no news that the use of smartphones and tablets has been found to be detrimental for the usual brain development of children. I’ve placed emphasis on the word “usual” because even though children that are allowed to use smartphones and tablets end up having a different brain structure (both physical and operational), this may not be detrimental for them in a possible future where a whirlwind of interaction with robots and multiple various forms of AI at the same time might become a part of the daily routine. But that’s a risky bet to make. It is now quite well recognized (also by neuroscientists) that these devices are harmful for children^.

    Recent studies, however, have shown that the exaggerated use of smartphones is causing damage in adults too. One of the most serious effects of smartphone abuse is social retardation, which has grave repercussions across a wide spectrum of behaviors:

    http://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/04/06/technology-addiction-mental-health/^

    But wait, there’s more. The “hardware” side of the problem is further compounded by the software that we use. According to Tristan Harris, a former Google product manager, our minds are being hijacked by social media (and other similar online products). Here’s an excellent interview with Tristan where he explains how and why this happens:

    https://www.wired.com/story/our-minds-have-been-hijacked-by-our-phones-tristan-harris-wants-to-rescue-them^

    There is also a TED talk by Tristan where he describes the tactics and purposes of the corporations that profit from hijacking our time and attention:

    https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention^

    The smartphone is not only made to capture our attention, but also to encourage changes in how our brain works (neuroplasticity^ plays a huge role in this). As a result of these changes, our attention is easier to capture and once baited, it can be manipulated so that it doesn’t escape the trap. It wouldn’t be so bad if our attention and time would be invested in something useful, but many times this is not the case.

    Social media excels at propagating cheap thrills and “harmless” pleasures. Tempting us to divide our attention and scatter it across the endless assault of notifications, these websites and applications offer little more than a specter of happiness –it’s all that’s necessary in order to keep users satisfied and hooked on a certain platform. Unfortunately, social media has started to play an increasingly important role in who people vote for. Spreading knowledge this way has started to seriously harm our culture and society not only by allowing the rampant spread of false information but even more importantly by isolating social groups and preventing the spread of correct information.

    This is where things start to become very dangerous, because dis-informed voters are what dangerous individuals use to grab the leadership.  Power-hungry manipulators might be able to advance their interests and the interests of those they collude with, but this usually comes at a steep cost for humanity as a whole.

    It’s impressive how far these manipulation techniques have gotten. What’s a bit scary for me is that even with the army of psychologists and researchers at their disposal, the corporations are still barely scratching the surface when it comes to the intricacies of how the brain works. As the knowledge about our psyche advances, so increase the ways it can be exploited. Perhaps as an informed adult you can now take measures against this sort of manipulation. That’s the optimistic outcome when it comes to adults. However, take a deep breath now and think of the children^.

    Update: And then, of course, there’s the Trojan horse aspect these devices pose. Privacy? What privacy?

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/02179-SmartphonesTabletsSocial-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Smartphones, Tablets and How Social Media Hijacks Our Minds’ desc=’Recent studies have shown that the exaggerated use of smartphones is causing damage in adults. One of the most serious effects of smartphone abuse is social retardation, which has grave repercussions across a wide spectrum of behaviors.’]

  • How to Make Facebook Show You the Stuff You Really Care About

    How to Make Facebook Show You the Stuff You Really Care About

    Facebook doesn’t really do its job when you ask of it to follow a website for you. Before getting into the reasons and details, here are two images that explain how you can properly follow a page on Facebook. Unless you change your notification settings as shown in the images, the default behavior is that whatever you see in your news feed is at the whim of algorithms designed to extract money out of everybody using the website – users on the one side and advertisers on the other. Sadly Facebook treats as advertisers even non-profit content creators such as myself, but more on that below. However, at least for now, there are still ways to circumvent the algorithms. Here’s what I’m talking about:

    How to follow
    How to follow, step 1
    How to follow
    How to follow, step 2

    Fueling the division

    It’s a pity that I even have to type this but alas, due to the rather unfair algorithms employed by Facebook (and many other social networks), I realize it’s necessary to explain the current situation. Before I start, I’d like to emphasize that I have no problem with Facebook making a profit. As a living commercial entity, it needs to survive in order to evolve. But what will it evolve into? We as users of Facebook need to voice our concerns if we wish to have a say in its evolution. A social network should be the best place to make oneself heard but unfortunately, in the case of Facebook this is increasingly false.

    For example even if you follow Mentatul on Facebook, you will still not see all the new posts in your feed because the social network uses a ruthless filtering system that actually separates people into comfort bubbles^. This algorithm has its upsides because it can show users more of the stuff they are actually interested in, but it comes at a great cost.

    First of all, it deepens the chasms between social groups, reducing one’s opportunity to discuss with people outside one’s comfort zone. Like any company, Facebook wants its users happy. Happy users spend more time on the website and make the company more money. I’m not saying that the Facebook experience should become a carousel of discomfort, being bombarded with things you don’t care about or even disturb you. But instead of allowing users to become isolated tribes there should be certain topics that can cross all boundaries, especially topics that are important for social development (equal rights, education, ecosystem, anti-corruption, critical thinking).

    Perhaps one day AI algorithms will be smart enough to discern between constructive writing (ideas, criticism, analysis) and intellectual poison (false news, hate speech). The question is if the humans sitting at the control panel will allow these algorithms to contribute to educating people. Certain elite groups prefer to dumb down the masses so that they are easily controllable. But there are also those that have realized that an educated population can be much more profitable for the entire species in the long run.

    Making life difficult for non-profits

    Another way Facebook algorithms are hurting is treating non-profits as if they were advertisers. The website is built quite “intelligently” so that it coerces the owners of pages into paying for getting exposure. It’s understandable when we’re talking about commercial, for-profit entities. But sadly, for all its “well meaning”^ attitude, Facebook doesn’t help non-profits much. Most of my posts there hardly reach a third of my followers, with the website constantly nagging me to pay in order to reach more people.

    A friendly reminder to PAY
    A friendly reminder to PAY

    There is zero advertisement on Mentatul and the website doesn’t bring me any money yet, quite the contrary, it consumes time and bandwidth. I will never charge for my work, everything is provided for free, with a possible future option for donations. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t care that my page is a non-profit. Even though I’m an independent writer, it still treats me as an advertiser. What a non-profit cares about is for people who are interested in what the non-profit has to say to receive all updates.

    A friendly reminder to PAY
    Another friendly reminder to PAY (for each post)

    When I post something on Mentatul’s Facebook page, it gets shown to a (sometimes very) limited amount of people “following” the page. To make matters worse, I’ve noticed that the most important articles, such as the ones about social issues (consumerism, intellectual diet, cultural and environmental decay) are shared even less. It’s not surprising, because such articles seem to go against Facebook’s profit-driving forces: advertisement.

    A friendly reminder to PAY
    A friendly reminder to PAY (for sharing original content I created and already paid for… with my time)

    This is not a revolution. It’s evolution

    What makes me even sadder about this situation is that I’m not even against any company making money! I’m not against advertisement at all. Treating our consumerism problem for example doesn’t mean there won’t be advertisement or profits anymore.

    It simply means that companies should be encouraged to produce higher quality products with replaceable parts at increased cost. The increased cost is a profit driver that will allow companies to cover for the R&D investment required for providing better quality and the infrastructure required for maintaining products for a longer time.

    Competition means that there will always be winners and losers. Curing consumerism will still be done by companies, but it has to be us, the buyers of products, who make sure that non-consumerist companies succeed. Facebook still has a place in that world, so does advertisement and corporations. But it can all be done in a much better fashion in order to safeguard our ecosystem and continued quality of life on this planet.

    And this is how I turned a post about how to follow a website into a philosophical discussion about economy, advertisement and the artificial intelligence used by social networks. Seriously though, if you like what I write here, please go through the trouble of following my Facebook page properly :D.

    [ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/01971-HowToWieldFaceBook-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’How to Make Facebook Show You the Stuff You Really Care About’ desc=’Facebook doesn't really do its job when you ask of it to follow a website for you.’]

  • Hypernormalisation

    Hypernormalisation

    Wait wait wait. Before you start screaming “Whaaat!? An almost three hours long documentary about manufactured truth and propaganda through social media?!”, just watch this short, 1 minute extract from mentioned documentary:

    http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/chilling-clip-from-adam-curtis-doc-should-make-everyone-rethink-their-online-outrage/^

    Now, imagine that there are a lot more minutes like that in the documentary located at the link below. Also imagine that together, these seconds are much more powerful than taken in individual extracts (think “interconnected brains math”: 1+1=3, 3+3=a million). Now feel free to go ahead and advance your awareness of the world:

    http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/hypernormalisation-2016/^

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  • How Donald Trump Becoming President Changed My World

    How Donald Trump Becoming President Changed My World

    Months ago, I wrote a short piece rationalizing why Trump will not be president of the USA (unless the Republican party wants to commit political suicide). I was quite sure it will be the last time I’d mention his name on this website. During the following months, I was given a stark reminder that “nothing’s certain”. Not only did Trump get the presidency, but the Republican party is doing quite well.

    I’m not ruling out political suicide just yet, but this doesn’t change the fact I’ve made a serious estimation error regarding Donald’s chances. It has been one of my most disappointing prognoses, so I chastised myself over it more than a few times. However, I spent far more energy into learning from this mistake. There are many teachings indeed.

    First of all, it seems like some countries are failing to adapt democracy to the Internet age. Starting with the spread of lies about candidates through social media and ending with cyber warfare, I think that the democratic process is in serious need of renovation.

    I wouldn’t really call it a teaching – since I was always aware of this – but the fury of the people should never be underestimated. Trump and similar candidates across the world are riding on this wave of anger. I just hope that Americans won’t regret installing Trump as their president like other nations regretted their choice dearly in the past. I can’t help drawing some parallels with a certain leader that got elected in Europe about 85 years ago. We’re still recovering from the emotional scars he left behind.

    But the most important change in my life since Donnie Tea became president is that the event miraculously stopped me from reading the news three times a day (I’ve been trying to cut down for years). I’m now at about twice a week, having gained about 2-3 extra hours per week. As I said in the title of this posting, this is about how my world has changed. It’s one of the more subjective posts I’ve written, which is why I filed it under the new category “Life Fragments”.

    I’m fed up seeing news feeds clogged with “Donald said that” or “Donald did that”. I’m done being coaxed into reading these venomous sensationalist stories. I can’t help sharing a comparison I made recently: “democracy without education is like capitalism without capital”. Unfortunately, many voters lack the education to properly detect fake and/or manipulative press.

    I’m going to pass this season of the “all-you-can-consume information age”. Sure, I’ll keep an eye out on the news, but I’m done letting these companies infect my mind and therefore my life.

    Before, during and after the election, many media cartels made tons of money writing about Trump. Most of the published stories consist of the endless repetition of a single event, or are of little relevance. Even in countries that had nothing to do with the circus of an election that occurred in the USA, his name was mentioned more often than the most important local politicians. For example in Sweden, Donnie’s name was mentioned in the press many more times than the country’s most important political figure, the Prime Minister.

    For a while, I will stop writing much about politics. Even when I will, my approach will be very cautious. I’ll close this short entry with a few of the more relevant links written in the past few days about the beginning of Donnie Tea’s illustrious career as threat to human rights and civilization.

    However, I know that I know nothing. Perhaps some of his and his party’s decisions will turn out quite beneficial for our civilization. So take my comments below as perhaps totally wrong. Let’s see how things look ten years from now.

    Denying human-caused climate change and therefore setting back efforts to clean up our ecosystem:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-white-house-website.html^

    Setting back the only recent attempt – however feeble – to improve healthcare in the USA:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-signs-executive-order-that-could-lift-affordable-care-acts-individual-mandate/2017/01/20/8c99e35e-df70-11e6-b2cf-b67fe3285cbc_story.html?utm_term=.7a657c600a5a^

    Turning government into a discount shop for selling the tax payer’s hard-earned rights to a clean, safe and fair country (and accelerating the destruction of the ecosystem – also setting a bad example for governments across the world):

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/23/trump-to-ceos-ill-wipe-out-75-percent-of-regulations-fast-track-u-s-factories/?utm_term=.89318c36c008^

    Jeopardizing an already fragile geopolitical climate:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-reacts-to-trumps-america-first-inaugural-speech/2017/01/20/5452f9ca-df95-11e6-8902-610fe486791c_story.html?utm_term=.aabf5ad12666^

    Using American influence to restrict women’s rights across the world (I’m not completely pro-choice, but I do believe that pro-life is a severe restriction of a woman’s rights, especially in special circumstances such as rape or very risk family environments):

    http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/abortion/315652-trump-signs-executive-order-reinstating-global-gag-rule-on^

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