|
I don't know what the cultural impact of this documentary will be since most won't care to change their behavior one bit. People are building walls around their echo chambers and are protective of it. I was well aware of most of this and had been complaining lately about how I don't see there being a good ending in sight considering how much growth there seems to be in the extreme right and extreme left. I've been finding it harder and harder to have conversations with many people I know or even family because of their extreme stances on many of todays core issues. Most if not all of their positions or perceived understanding of these issues is straight out of their facebook echo chambers. They started with an ignorant stance and had all their thoughts and ignorance echoed and amplified back at them, empowering them to feel even stronger about it all. My feed is peppered with propaganda simply because I still bother to comment to family, trying to share facts, trying to pull them back a bit.. How can they not know better?? Right... The information never reached them, because they relied social media to get the initial news and once suckered in, they only seeked to confirm their biases. There's no questioning why we're in the world we're currently in. Nothing about this is normal, especially when we claim to have access to information. I know better, yet still find myself scrolling my feed robotically.. I had just scrolled it a bit ago, but, found myself scrolling it again. I didn't plan on it. I just had a blip in focus while I was watching something and my new programmed behavior was to pick up my phone and start scrolling. When they say kids mental health severely affected, I'm not surprised one bit. I see it. My nieces and my gf's nieces are all hooked. I only see my nieces once or twice a year since we live pretty far from the rest of my family, but I was shocked to see they knew how to find content and how to operate my brothers iphone before they knew how to read. And if there was a youtube video they talked about, they knew how to find it again. Again, they couldn't read or spell yet.. My girlfriends older nieces are locked on tiktok. They determine how they feel based on others perceptions of their online accomplishments. All these kids are trying to become influencers. The feuds that arise, who collaborated with who, commented what on who, bullied them, etc etc. Bullying in schools is nothing new, but at least it used to have a schedule. You got bullied in the hallways at school, or around town, or during recess. Now, there's no turning it off. Kids get bullied around the clock, and some of it leaves a permanent mark online for every other kid to see. Thats not healthy for kids. They don't have a safety net once they get home. Politics are a clusterfuck right now. One can't keep up with the events while trying to find the actual facts on everything and not simply believing everything being targeted at them. And we hope to have positive change soon? Come on.. As long as people can be bought, this is not going anywhere. The one thing the documentary didn't touch on, and I guess its the cause of this in the first place, our capitalistic systems are unsustainable. Everything must grow, indefinitely. Every quarter, companies must meet their growth targets or take a hit. At first, you work on improving production, cutting waste. Then you optimize every other aspect you can. Eventually you cut corners, eventually thats not enough anymore so you outsource everything, move production to the cheapest place you can. Then all these tools are available to market your products in the most targeted way possible. Facebook et al don't care what you pay attention to, as long as you pay attention and they can throw ads at you. The companies will pour as much into this as they can get out. They'll squeeze every drop out of that lemon. This whole system is like one big dirty coffee filter being wrung out too hard. Eventually it'll rip and people will fall out, civil war is definitely not that far out of sight. I think they touched accurately on the big picture and where things are headed if things don't change. Whats sadder is we know it, we see it, and we're unwilling to change it, because that would drastically affect finances of too many parties, and there's one thing that rules above all, and thats the all mighty dollar. |
Another comment here mentioned this site as a good starting point for taking tangible action against being influenced by algorithms: https://www.humanetech.com/take-control