Agreed. I don't think what Facebook is doing is ethical, but I agree 100% with you that the control is ultimately in our hands.. it first requires acknowledgement and then physical action.
I think Facebook demonstrates to us just how much of slaves we are to psychological manipulation. To me it all boils down to the same fundamental human flaw, which is addiction. Corporations have been taking advantage of alarmingly simple ways to lure us into consuming all sorts of products (tangible or not) for a long time now.
Since this has been going on for so long, I think another obstacle is that in acknowledging this flaw in our behavior, we will also be forced to confront other flaws of our society that are entangled within.
It's easier for people to blame a non-human entity or the Zuck(..?), than to confront that they need to make changes that will affect their/our lifestyle.
We all need to stop outsourcing the blame and make the individual efforts to change ourselves instead of wasting energy fighting this perpetual battle. We each have little to no control over the former and all the control over the latter. Wake up.
>Agreed. I don't think what Facebook is doing is ethical, but I agree 100% with you that the control is ultimately in our hands.. it first requires acknowledgement and then physical action.
Well, part of action to change yourself is to change your environment, so that you don't have bad habits within easy reach.
A huge fine to take down Facebook helps with that, and sends a strong signal to other social media takers...
It's not like "change yourself" only has to be some "from within you", will third parties are allowed to push lures straight down your face all the time...
Smoking wasn't stopped by just people smoking less, but also by big fines for tobacco, extra taxes, and so on.
yeah, of course, but a lot of this also has to do with the information that is available to us, particularly since the advent of the internet (although the spread of false information has shown to pose a threat to this). Smoking was also stopped because its negative health consequences became undeniable. Although, if you go live in France you'll see that a lot of people still choose not to act on this information. As far as I'm concerned, the consensus is out about social media, the way it's currently being used is detrimental to our health.
One large issue with these particular "addictions" is that we are hooked on them without being aware of their addictive nature. Whether or not the intentions were malicious are certainly something that needs to be addressed but the obstacle remains, which is that we have to individually endure the difficulty of withdrawal to break out of the cycle.
And that really is the case, it's withdrawal and withdrawal sucks. A lot of us already live demanding lives, experience depression/anxiety on varying but significant scales and don't really have the energy to devote toward the will-power that is required when distancing oneself from an addictive behavior. And it does require energy.
Of course preventing this on a large scale is a necessary goal, but we can make instantaneous changes now. Baby steps. I didn't delete my Facebook but I blocked the news-feed, uninstalled the app and hardly ever use it other than to see if people are trying to contact me.
I think Facebook demonstrates to us just how much of slaves we are to psychological manipulation. To me it all boils down to the same fundamental human flaw, which is addiction. Corporations have been taking advantage of alarmingly simple ways to lure us into consuming all sorts of products (tangible or not) for a long time now.
Since this has been going on for so long, I think another obstacle is that in acknowledging this flaw in our behavior, we will also be forced to confront other flaws of our society that are entangled within.
It's easier for people to blame a non-human entity or the Zuck(..?), than to confront that they need to make changes that will affect their/our lifestyle.
We all need to stop outsourcing the blame and make the individual efforts to change ourselves instead of wasting energy fighting this perpetual battle. We each have little to no control over the former and all the control over the latter. Wake up.