By Fr Joshan Rodrigues –
“I put a spell on you… Because you’re mine. And I don’t care if you don’t want me… I’m yours right now.” The deep and soul-clutching lyrics of Nina Simone’s song ‘I put a spell on you’ play hauntingly in the background, as we see a young college-going Ben completely hypnotised by the warm dark glow of his smartphone, oblivious to the real world around him.
‘The Social Dilemma’ which is streaming on Netflix is another in a lengthy list of literature and film-documentaries that are screaming at humanity to comprehend the far-reaching physiological and emotional effects of the prolonged use of social media and internet communication apps and what they are doing to the human psyche. Not just that, going much beyond individual human beings, social media culture has caused enormous damage to the social fabric of the world, with its impact on politics, public opinion, the truth of information, mental health and facilitating the high-speed dissemination of conspiracy theories and fake news.
Though this perspective and narrative is not completely unfamiliar to us, the film lays the blame squarely at the door of social media companies and their business model of exploiting users for financial gain through surveillance capitalism and data mining, the ‘new oil’ of the 21st century. The film goes one step further, though, by calling for an understanding of the profit models of these companies, providing financial alternatives for profit beyond user data, and for the pursuit of ‘Humane’ technology – a technology that serves humankind, rather than exploiting it.
The film features interviews and commentary from a number of renowned Silicon Valley employees, or rather ex-employees, who began their work with positive and idealistic hopes for a human-enhancing technology, but were soon disillusioned, when the very programs they helped create began to be used to the detriment of users. A good example is Justin Rosenstein, the creator of Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, whose intention was to bring people together in positive ways and enhance social connections. Unfortunately, the ‘Like’ button has now become the cause of mental agony and low self-esteem among millions of teenagers and adolescents the world over. What dismays him though is that Facebook and other social media companies refuse to turn back features, even when there is overwhelming scientific and sociological evidence that points towards their harmful effects.
Interviews with former Google design ethicist and Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris, and many other ex-employees of companies like Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook, provide alarming perspectives from industry insiders, which make us sit up and take note. These interviews run side-by-side with a dramatised account, depicting a teenager’s addiction to social media, and the manner in which his thinking is completely hijacked by what is thrown at him in the online world. The psychological manipulation is allegorised in the form of three dystopian entities controlling Ben’s every move from behind a digital dashboard. These three figures represent the three algorithms that are most significant to any social media platform’s success – engagement, growth and advertising. Ben is depicted as wired to an enormous mainframe, in scenes reminiscent from the ‘Matrix’ and the ‘Trinity of Manipulation’ trigger him by turning knobs and dials to extract the greatest financial profit from his onscreen activities.
Tristan tells us that the pushback narrative from these tech giants and their supporters is often to say that the fear-mongering about an AI-controlled humanity is vastly exaggerated. Haven’t these platforms made our life so much easier? From buying groceries online to ordering an Uber at the click of a button, technology has, quite the opposite, given control into the hands of human beings. The problem? Tristan says that’s because the dystopia runs simultaneously with utopia. Mix false propaganda with genuine information, and most people are unlikely to discern the difference. The issue, Tristan says, is that we don’t pay for the services we use; the advertisers do. And hence tech companies serve advertisers, not their users. For the first 50 years from the 1960s, Silicon Valley created beautiful hardware and software and sold it to consumers. Today, companies sell consumers.
Even this is putting it too simplistically. It’s actually our attention that is the product – a gradual, slight, imperceptible change in our own behaviour and perception that is sold to the highest bidder. Consumers may think that they are in control of their choices; however, that is just an illusion, since we are served up a selective diet of news, videos, images, links and search results, based on the data models that have been created after an enormous intrusion into our every move online. We are continuously watched, tracked and measured. The result – computer programs can accurately predict our personality types and behaviour patterns; in fact, they know us better than we know ourselves. AI has reached so far as to accurately predict suicidal tendencies, and thus prevent them in a number of cases by informing local law enforcement agencies.
At the base of why digital products are designed this way is the concept of Persuasive Technology – a study of human psychology aimed at modifying human behaviour to push us towards taking repeated action; sort of like gambling. Many of the industry greats who have worked in this field have passed through the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, where the art of subliminal manipulation is taught. Notable features that have emerged from this science are notifications, photo tagging, the refresh option and the ellipsis bubble that indicates to you in real time that the other person is typing a reply. Persuasive tech or ‘Growth Hacking’ is aggressively experimented and enhanced in small incremental steps, with the ultimate goal of keeping you on screen for as long as possible. Because the time you spend on screen is directly proportional to the profit made. Time is money.
But all this is just the tip of the problem. Whoa! The stakes went up exponentially when governments and corporate-political lobbies discovered that social media could be weaponised for political gain. That is when the gates of hell were opened, so to speak. The rise of social media, beginning a decade ago, has also ushered in the age of Alternative Facts and the creation of a Post-Truth Society. Elections are fought more on social media platforms than in political rallies. The age of reasoned debate has been supplanted by a ‘my truth, your truth’ society, where people are unable to meet on any common ground of objective truth. This is leading to the breakdown of civil societies, and most alarmingly, democracies, and being replaced by plutocracies that serve the wealthy. We have become so impassioned in our political beliefs that we are unable to critique our own political dispensations, and see the positive aspects in the other side. The immediate, short-term danger? Civil War, warns Tristan, whose initial stages are already being seen in many countries around the world.
The film, though, is not all doomsday and pessimism. It also provides solutions. It calls for ethical designs to be integrated into tech products. It calls for recognising the profit-motives of tech companies and providing them with alternative fiscal incentives to stop monetising data collection. This should also be accompanied by legal regulations on the part of governments. Tax data collection, they say, just like water tax, and companies will be discouraged from collecting more data. Create enough social awareness so that people understand the positives and negatives of their on-screen activity and time spent. Encourage people to pay for services. In conclusion, though, since technology can’t be wished away, ‘The Social Dilemma’ calls for the pursuit of ‘Humane Technology’ that places the growth and enhancement of humanity at the centre of all technological innovation.
That is a dream worth dreaming.
Fr Joshan Rodrigues is the Managing Editor of The Examiner, Catholic Newsweekly of the Archdiocese of Bombay. He is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome in Institutional and Social Communications. He has done brief stints with the DeSales Media Group in Brooklyn, New York and Communications Office of the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales, London. He frequently blogs on faith and culture in ‘Musings in Catholic Land’