Facebook have witnessed criticism and controversies since its
launch in 2004. But its popularity remains atop in social media due to the
façade of indifference it has managed. It’s a grim reality that people diddle
around Facebook, squander away precious time which descends the path to escape
liabilities and eventually an emotional upheaval occurs in the family.Research
tells that we spent large a portion of our day in a state of fragmented
attention, breaking up the attention constantly to take a quick glance to just
check them which will permanently reduce the capacity for concentration. A
famous neurologist Robert Sapolsky had researched on this and called it, “magic
of maybe”. When we look at the phone maybe there is text or maybe not, the
uncertainty in what the text might deliver results in a 400% increase in
dopamine. It’s roughly the same amount of dopamine as a person gets from
cocaine. That means we are giving highly addictive drugs into the hands of our
new generation. As they have already saturated with this technology. Facebook is
like a “virtual cage” that moves along with us, restrict our free will, and
treats all of us as “lab animals”.
Social Media companies hire individuals called “Attention Engineers”. By using
algorithm gorges on data about us their duty is to read and analyze our mindset.
What type of links do we like to click? Which videos do we like to watch? In our
contact lists, whose updates are we more concerned about? How anxiously we are
waiting for notifications? Who are you connecting with in-person and online,
clink on likes or ignores? What facial expressions do we make or how do we react
in different situations? Have Facebook been spying on us? Yes, they read our
personality traits and figure out whether we are introverts, extroverts,
conservatives, liberals, and atheists. Infect, we receive engineered feedback
all the time that makes us neurotic.B. F. Skinner was a famous behaviorist. He
used to set up a “Skinner Box”, a methodical system where caged animals treated
after specific actions they performed. Nobody pets or whispers to the animals,
just a purely isolated mechanical action -- a new kind of training for modern
times where we are being trained by using behaviorist techniques. Facebook is
like an idiot demon that monitors us. We are being remote-controlled and
unconsciously behave like Facebooks “well train-dog” or a “robot”.
We are unintentionally suffering from Facebook depression where we start to
compare our life/activities with others and there is less satisfaction or
sadness. It is human psychology that we really care what other people think of
us. So, when we upload our new photo or profile photo on Facebook, our mind
becomes very vulnerable to know that what other people think of my new profile
photo. We enjoy the ephemeral joys in Facebook by the perceived sense of
perfection because we get the reward in short-term signals like hearts, thumbs
up, and unfortunately conflate them with truths but, it is just fake brittle
popularity. We don’t realize while using Facebook, but we are programmed. Social
media tools are designed to be addictive. Simon Sinek motivational speaker and
leadership guru said when you wake up in the morning, you're checking your
mobile-first before greeting your wife, and this is an “addictive behavior”.
Lack of vetting for news is a phenomenon of social media. Any person can anytime
sprout a piece of fake news, fake account and cast aspersion upon anyone where
no one can exert check and balance. Fake and Real news goes in tandem, due to
the rough benchmark, it’s hard to determine which is true. So, to err is human
but to err on technology is an absurdity. From domestic to international level
this platform is being misused Like in the 2017 presidential elections in
France, around 30,000 politically motivated fake accounts had detected who were
involved in spreading misinformation. It’s still unknown how many fake accounts
are creating in one day and how many have created in total until this day is an
enigma. The problems faced by advertisers concerning Facebook’s video matric
miscalculation, it truly beggars all description. The dark side of “Facebook
Live” is a PR nightmare when people broadcasted acts of violence, like quarrels,
homicide, and suicides.
Jaron Lanier is considered as one of the fathers of vertical reality and veteran
of Silicon Valley explains “How social media ruins your life and harming your
health” in his famous book “Ten arguments for deleting your social media
accounts right now”. He concerns that Facebook and Tweeter are reprograming how
we feel and think? According to him this rarely happened unless you signed up to
be a test subject in an experiment in the basement of a university’s psychology
building. Then you’d go into a room and be tested while someone watched you
through a one-way mirror. Even though you knew an experiment was going on, you
didn’t realize how you were being manipulated. At least you gave consent to be
manipulated in some way. One could become paranoid if Facebook’s filthy game
with US intelligence revealed. The Satirical tabloid and website reported that
Mark Zuckerberg shares Facebook information to the CIA (Central Intelligence
Agency). It is an inevitable truth that how can US citizen avoids sharing
anything from the CIA.
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