Interesting segment on an MSNBC news show last night about the effect Facebook could have on such a large number of Americans. Worldwide, there are as many Facebook users as there are Christians. Only, Facebook users don't just look at Facebook on Sunday morning. They look at it probably every single day, at least once a day. And they are getting "targeted ads" and suggested posts and memes.
And if they look (click on) at one ad, they get more like it, and if they use the clickable drop down menu, they can get Facebook to stop showing them ads about certain things, or from certain companies, if they are offensive or not relevant.
So, I think where this is all headed is soon there will be a group of people who, combined, number the same as all the Christians in the world, just to give you an idea of the scope of it, who look at something at least once a day and see only those things that are "relevant to" them or that they have deemed not offensive, or that interest them particularly, and, most likely, nothing else.
Think how happy they will be. And how stupid.
And if they're lucky, they vote.
ReplyDeleteEveryone in a big flap about this and, of course, rightly so but don't people generally seek confirmation for their biases anyway?
ReplyDeleteSure. I think the difference is that it used to be that a person would run into an opposing viewpoint now and then just by being exposed to the main stream media. This may not change anyone's mind, but I believe it made people less sure--in a healthy way--about their own views. People said things like, "I see your point, but..." and "live and let live." Now people tend to become outraged at opposing views, and act as if they totally don't understand them. It's true--we often really don't-- but I think it's because with the ideological bubbles we create we all tend to become extreme, and less tolerant, and I'm sure less understandable to our opposition.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is of course our own president, who is president of us all, feeds fuel to this situation, probably on purpose, by being as extreme and divisive as possible in order to gain his own ends, politically, I guess. And that just perpetuates the downward spiral we're all in right now.
What I'm trying to say is, it's an f*ing mess and Facebook isn't helping much.
I want to add that I really like seeing your posts, Asha, about animals. I'm sure they have made a lot of people think about those issues, where before, they most likely were not even on their radar.
I'm less happy to see negative hate memes that vilify people of either party or left/right tendency, even though I agree with roughly half of them, just as you do, but I don't think they are helping in a larger sense, either.