This week has been quite a chill one in our household. I’ve spent most of it catching up on things on Netflix and watching films and stuff with my family before I go back to uni next week. We’ve gone through all sorts of things – binged probably too much Game of Thrones, Catch-22, got through copious amounts of films and side shows on the telly we’re watching, and finally watched the much anticipated The Devil All The Time (which is a brilliant watch and one that I absolutely recommend to those with an acquired taste). That’s just to name a few.
One thing we watched this week was The Social Dilemma. Everyone has been raving about it on Instagram, so we thought we’d see what the hype was about. If you’ve not yet heard of it, it’s essentially a documentary about social media; a compilation of thoughts and facts from the minds of those in the involvement of its commencement and occurrence in modern society. I thought it was a very interesting watch and quite frankly I am scared shitless, but evidently not enough to stop using it…
I would say I’m quite a conspiracist. I like to wonder about the actualisation of things and a sort of ‘hidden truth’ behind things. However, the thought of us being inadvertently controlled by adverts and some sort of higher social power has admittedly skipped my mind. Until this documentary that is. It hasn’t really occurred to me about how much personal information we volunteer to share with the world. How often do we just fill in our personal details so absentmindedly? Without really wondering who has access to it, what will happen to that information or where it will go? It’s such a fascinating concept to me. We voluntarily share things with the world whether that be photos, videos, information about us, our thoughts and opinions on certain things. Where does it all go? As soon as you hit post, millions upon millions of people are able to have access to that information. That’s bloody crazy but it’s the norm and for some reason, everyone seems to dismiss it and carry on.
And what’s crazier is that we often do it without a second thought. I was contemplating all of the times that I have just subconsciously clicked ‘accept cookies’. What in the world are cookies if not a delightful snack? Have I just accepted a virus? Allowed access to a hacker? Volunteered to share my activity on this website? Have I just opened up a can of worms that I should have declined? Probably. But who the hell knows?
There is so much technology out there and I have no idea about probably like 70% of it. That probably makes me sound really stupid, and I may not even be speaking for the majority, but I am so dense when it comes to this kind of thing. I will happily just accept anything if it means I can get on with whatever it is I was doing.
Another thing that I find quite mortifying actually is the fact that everything is recorded and stored away in some sort of digital archive. The documentary mentions that every movement, every click, every web page and activity on said web page is carefully documented. They spoke about Instagram and how they (unspecified who or what) monitor the way in which you use your social media. For instance, they will time how long you look at a photo posted on Instagram. And what the bloody hell for? Is this not incredibly intrusive? For what would you need to monitor how long I looked at a post? This just absolutely blew me away. Who would need to know that? And why would they need to know it in the first place? What would they do with that sort of information? Perhaps if they’d time how long I was on the app, I could derive some logical reasons as to why that needs to be documented, but timing every photo just seems a little too ridiculously invasive.
Another thing – ads. I’m not sure if you’re aware of the conspiracy that everything online is listening? Well, personally, I’d like to confirm it is less likely a conspiracy but more so the truth. Have you ever had an incident where you have been talking about something specific either in conversation or on the phone or something, and then a few days later, you’d get an advert for that very thing? That’s happened to me more times that I can count. For example, when I was applying for uni a couple of years ago, I would always discuss with my sister about what she thought of whichever one I was on about (applying was more of a collaborative process). We’d speak about specific ones that I was considering and then literally the day after, I had an ad pop up on my Instagram about that exact uni telling me to book an open day. Spooky, right?
A more recent example (now hold on to your hats, this may actually blow you away) is an incident that happened last week, and it really freaked me out. So basically, I was on my laptop, listening to music – a daily occurrence, nothing at all out of the ordinary. I think I was writing, or on Twitter or something and then all of a sudden, a thought popped into my head about peri peri chips from Nandos. I might have been hungry, or it may have been the fact that I have been craving them for weeks now and still haven’t had a chance to go in this bloody pandemic because apparently, they’re not essential (this is yet to be confirmed). Either way, we all daydream about them at some point, whether you admit it or not. But, alas, that isn’t the apex of my anecdote. Literally like less than 20 minutes later, I had an ad for Nandos telling me that they deliver and that if you can’t stop thinking about peri peri chips, within a few clicks you could have them delivered to your door. What the actual fuck? That’s mad innit? I got really stressed out about this. Whether it was a coincidence or whether my devices have finally learned to read my mind – both of which are inherently sinister. I still have not yet come to a logical explanation.
What gets me though, is that despite knowing that there are people and organisations and whatnot that have access to our data, our personal details and photos, we still revert back to it. Admittedly, I have cut back on using social media now that I have seen this documentary, and I reckon it is definitely worth the watch. It’s interesting though that with all we know about social media compared to how much we don’t, it is still very much a prominent aspect of this modern way of living. As technology evolves, the use of social media will too. If anything, the use of social sites and apps will increase, and that’s quite worrying. There are people that know us better than we know ourselves and we have become predictable and oblivious in the growth of our knowledge. These juxtaposing elements of social media is something I find fascinating and simultaneously terrifying too.
Parallel to all of the insane conspiracies though, social media has had just as much of a positive impact on the world as it has negative. The documentary discusses how it has contributed to charity with people donating and raising money for certain causes, brought people together, helped people to find donors. There is a lot that is often dismissed because of its notoriously negative reputation. It’s just a sort of fear of the unknown kind of thing. But actually, aside from the scary parts and the organisations listening in, collecting your data and information to potentially use against you someday or for some sort of propaganda or blackmail, social media can be quite a happy place. Yes, there are incredibly ominous undertones, but there is positivity too. You just sort of have to actively seek it. Or better yet, be it.
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