The simple, but not easy solution: UNPLUG.
Advertising (also known as manipulation through media). We have always had it and it has always used every platform available to it, adapting and getting more seductive and subtle. “They,” those who would influence us – corporations, politicians, foreign powers, etc., have purposely blurred the lines between reality and fantasy, between truth and lies, between facts and advertising.
On a billboard or in a newspaper, it is easy to separate news from ads. Less so on radio, less so on TV. Big Tech further blurred the lines on the web by coining the term: “content.” It is not news, facts, advertising, lies, or propaganda; it is just content. Big Tech gives you, the consumer, the task of sifting the true from the false, but they give you no tools or help to do so. Big Tech has made content so alluring, seductive, and compelling you want to believe it.
On February 4th 2004, a new website called TheFacebook was launched, and the compelling but passive effort to monetize your attention became aggressive and invasive. Enter AI, chatbots, and algorithms whose sole purpose is to analyze your usage (what you look at online) to grab more of your attention and monetize it. This innovation turned all content into advertising or seductive invitations to view ads disguised as facts.
How can we expect to use this platform to become informed? How can we trust what we know?
The first and most impactful step is LIMIT YOUR SCREEN TIME. Every minute looking at screens, large and small, is a minute you are open to receive their manipulation, their programming. Second, identify and use trusted sources for your news, understanding that search engines like Google and Yahoo are filtering what you see based on every previous search and purchase you have made. Subscribe to a newspaper and read it every day. Find a search engine that does not mine your history.
I dropped social media in February, and my life has become much more serene!
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