Face it, man's a screen animal

NonGenZs Did your eyes ever or probably still fixate on the TV screen at the far corner of a barrestaurant while the company youre with is who you should be talking directly to But you kept looking at some random sportmusicvideo playing in the distance behind the cashcounter anywayIts the power of the flickering image that naturally draws our eyes towards a screen I belong to a generation that could watch empty TV make that MTV all night if the parents were away Whats changed That TV is in my pocket and it beeps every few minutes actively calling attention to itself I always glance at it while my companion at the restaurantbar is visibly offendedAnd I wonder whats so great about people in the physical form while you could quickly be with a few more mdash also simultaneously optimising a moment of leisure with work mdash without having to be anywhere else Its a boonIt makes solotrips to the barrestaurant or another country delightfully possible mdash let alone months at home during a punishing pandemic Sure its also poor etiquette to be scrolling away during precious life moments mdash something you can solve by deactivating notifications from all apps on your phone NoYes there are still addiction issues related to maximising dopamine hits from likes and shares on social networks Theres also some scary data on the young mdash to do with rise in depression selfharm and suicide rates mdash that like most such stats sometimes run the risk of simplistically confusing correlation with causationBut I dont think Jeff Orlowskis brilliantly directed polemic The Social Dilemma shining a light on humans as lab rats manipulated by Big Tech companies argues for total abstinence from social media or the Internet eitherIts playing on Netflix a Big Tech firm which itself mines personal preferences down to the poster of a filmseries that appears on your screen which is different from somebody elses And Netflix works just as hard to expand your screentime away from say FacebookTwitterInstagram mdash all of which consider your sleep their prime competitor Whats the key difference thoughNetflix is subscriberbased You directly pay for the content in it Its made a documentary film like The Social Dilemma cool mdash a genre untouched by mainstream palette before YouTube its main rival is paid for by the advertiser Any shit goesThen whats the problem mdash theres an extended moment of silence early on in The Social Dilemma with that question when all the techreformists in the film look askance They explain at length the tech design directed at compulsive usage being the problemThe fact that fake newshistorysciencegeographypoliticsbiographyhatred is a problem since it travels six times faster on social media than real news Because we show an inherent bias towards negativity conspiracy theories and confirmation of beliefs once heldsolidifiedThis leads to polarising of opinions in populations and if left unchecked will cause civil wars and the death of democracy in the short and medium run and end of human civilisation eventuallyWho benefits GoogleFacebooks bottom line How Because the business model is centred on the user being the product And the customer being the advertiser You hear this all the time mdash that if the advertiser pays the advertiser is served Hasnt media forever been in the business of selling and buying human attentionAll this advertising once went to the newspaper Bulk of it did move to the Internet but not only to the web versions of news It went to aggregators like Google Facebook that hardly create anything The newspaper with reportorial depthfactschecks in place is responsible for every printed word on it Why not Facebook then given that it calls its infinite scroll a newsfeedWho brings you Facebook The same sort of people Im guessing that supply you desi crap as TV news Now you cant ask a corporation where to spend its money You can continue to believe theyll go wherever people areBut you can become conscious hearing blatant hatespeech divisive innuendoes punching downsideways at public figures to suit private purposes on TV Look closely beforeafter the news anchor who did not bring you the slander mdash the adverts did You can also switch off TVSocial media perhaps works differently Dressed up as characters from Mad Men you watch suits in The Social Dilemma predictingmanipulating your behaviour towards psychological entrapment so you are transformed and just cant leave But thats an algorithm Yes it is a technology issue But it has a human solutionThere are real proverbial Mad Men mdash from advertising itself mdash at the other end who actually pay Facebook for their behaviour We only refer to them as an unknown collective mdash faceless Mogambo residing on another planet overseeing the destruction of our ownIn line with the clicheacute of capitalists having no consciencecompassion They still comprise people like you and me our kith and kin being directly affected by an ecosystem that rewards fakesensationalist information wreaking havoc on occasionWho is this Big Business packed with amoral aliens that cant address the problem its money causes to itself Even if they disagree so far with its suggested scale and were talking existentialistsurvival issues here Helpless unhinged Big Tech taking on an Artificial Intelligence AI life of its own is then simply the symptom rightMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news