Netflix's documentary The Social Dilemma shows that the social media problem is actually much deeper than it might seem. Through interviews with Silicon Valley engineers and technology and psychology experts, the film explores how IT companies manipulate human psychology for profit. How? It's simple: the algorithms used in social networks are able to create our ideal psychological portraits and gradually change us in their own interests.
The study, which involved 5,000 people, showed that the more often people use social networks, the worse they evaluate their own physical and mental health and the lower their life satisfaction. (American Journal of Epidemiology, 2017).
Most of the engineers working for the well-known tech giants have attended university courses where they learned how to use the basics of human psychology to manipulate us to achieve their own goals. Social networks successfully play on the deepest manifestations of human nature, no matter how much we try to resist it. “They seduce you. They manipulate you. They want a lot from you,” says Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology.
Tim Kendall, former CEO of Facebook and Pinterest, shares: “I think there's a classic irony to this. All day long I work on creating something that I will become a hostage of myself. And there are times when I can’t help myself.”
Psychological manipulation is of particular concern for younger generations. Today's children are born into a technology-driven world that they simply have nothing to compare to. “We created a whole generation of people who grew up in an environment where the main goal of communication, the main goal of the whole culture, is manipulation,” says writer Jaron Lanier in the film.
Among other things, social networks destroy the concept of truth. Instead of living in one world, each of us spends our days in our own specially created world without even realizing it. News feeds have a chilling effect - in them we confirm our own views on life over and over again, and this distances us from reality.
“The ultimate goal of tech companies is to define a one-person audience and extract as much data as possible about each user,” says Tristan Harris. “This sends each person down their own rabbit hole,” or, as film director Jeff Orlowski says, “2.7 billion Truman Shows running at the same time.”
As a consequence, we see, for example, the activation of the flat earth movement. All thanks to the Youtube algorithm, which continues to throw people content that matches their vision of the world, even if it is not true.
“It's easy to think that it affects a few not very smart and easily suggestible people,” warns Guillaume Chaslot, the engineer who created the Youtube algorithm, “but the algorithm is getting smarter and smarter every day. Today he will convince someone that the Earth is flat, and tomorrow he will be able to convince you of something.”
And yet, do we have hope for a brighter future? And are there any ideas how to change the whole system "from above"? Or do we ourselves have to consciously refuse technology, being in constant stress from the fact that you can miss something important?
There is hope. But we need to stop being so indifferent to this whole situation. It's easier to think that you have absolutely no power against the tech giants. And if everyone thinks so, it will become true. But if we unite in this fight, then we have a chance. “We can demand that social networks be developed from the principles of humanism,” says Tristan Harris.
Meet the new decentralized social network web 3.0 - Solcial, which allows you to use the network without fear of censorship, which is completely independent of both the state and the company managing the project.
Content storage is implemented on IPFS, it is accessed via peer-2-peer (p2p). No one except the user himself will be able to manage his content, will not be able to make changes, delete or use confidential information. Why? IPFS is an open source, peer-to-peer distributed hypermedia protocol designed to function as a ubiquitous file system for all computing devices.
IPFS also solves the security problems that plague the HTTP-based Internet: IPFS-based sites with content-addressed data storage and signed content protection are not subject to DDoS attacks. Hence, the accounts are tamper-proof - everything is encrypted, with no backdoors reading your private messages. You can create an anonymous account and use it however you like.
What are the benefits of decentralization This Solcial network, compared to currently available centralized social networks:
lack of central regulation in applications. No permit is required, thus opening up new opportunities, including access to such people who were previously discriminated against because of their gender, income, place of residence, etc.
accordingly, less censorship and more freedom in the statements of users;
higher fault tolerance, since applications are hosted in decentralized nodes - they are almost impossible to hack and do not depend on the operation of any one server. It will be more difficult for hackers or others to penetrate the network. In addition, if they are able to do so, each of their transactions can be tracked and canceled on the network.
the ability to own data. Data that is transmitted over the network will be fully encrypted. In addition, users will be able to decide for themselves what information they want to share with third-party users, bloggers, platforms. Users can now sell their data and earn on it.
the network is less prone to service interruption. Because there is no central entity to function in, it becomes difficult for distributed denial of service or other forms of service failure to contribute.
opportunities to monetize their presence on the network, both for application operators and for the users themselves.
What I would like to say in conclusion, despite all the negative aspects of social networks, one cannot but admit that there is no turning back. And no one will be able to refuse them, because if this is a network for communication, then it is very convenient, economical and practical, if for work and creativity, then it seems fast, productive and useful. And the use of Solcial will help us reduce the negative points.
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