THE SOCIAL DILEMMA

I watched a documentary this morning on Netflix called, The Social Dilemma.  It is a documentary warning about the 'dangers' of FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Google search and all of Google apps and basically, all social media.  Its purpose is to show how, we, as humans are manipulated to act and react to ads, notifications and browsing.  I think it was kind of a take on the novel 1984.

It was concerning about what the social media knows about us and how they manipulate us to do as they want.  The purpose is monetary. Many interviews were by former employees of these varios companies and how their previous jobs related to 'controlling' our social media responses.

Pretty scary, until I got to thinking that social media didn't start this road to controlling our responses to advertising and persuasion.  It actually started way back in the early 20th Century when movies and radio began. These inventions sparked the minds of the corporations that money could be made by advertising.  And advertise they did. Jingles, slogans, sometimes outlandish  claims.   Remember snake oil?.  Later movies and television got in on the act, some with product placement and subliminal advertising.

The documentary emphasized the danger of addiction to social media, which is entirely true to many users.  But didn't television do the same thing?  When I was young, maybe 10 or 12 years old, my family would sit in front of the TV for a long time every night watching wrestling and the Roller Derby.  Then on Saturdays KTLA channel 5, here in Los Angeles, would have The Big Five movies all day long.  And, of course, there was no DVR so you couldn't skip the commercials, and boy were there commercials.

Even the telephone is an instrument for advertising, even today.  Robo calls?  Bill boards have been around for years on the highways.  Gimmick advertising like the Burma Shave signs, all in a row on the highway as you drove at 60miles an hour or more.  Times Square in NY is a Hugh advertising venue.  

When you enter a grocery store, where is the milk?  At the very back of the store.  Why? So you will pass all of the displays on the way and buy things you didn't even have on your list.  They also make sure the first thing you smell are the bakery products, I wonder why.  And product placement is expensive for suppliers in stores.  Guess what's at eye level on the shelves.  It's what they want to promote and sell and was paid for by the product to put there.  And stores do a lot more than that to get our attention to buy.  Even when you go to checkout stands there are displays of candy, magazines, gadgets and more just for us to be enticed .

I could go on and on, but the fact is we were already trained before the Internet and technology to be herded in their direction to buy of approve.  Can we say that nobody was ever addicted to television, or magazines, or the telephone or any other invention? 

So, what the documentary, The Social Dilemma, outlined is probably very true but, not new.  Even now stores detect us nearby and send texts or notifications of something that's on sale.  What will they think of next.  The WILL think of something, next.