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by Jaron Lanier
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Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now explains why you should quit social media today in order to feel healthier, happier, and more at peace.
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now explains why you should quit social media today in order to feel healthier, happier, and more at peace.
As soon as you’re online, you’re being watched. It might sound paranoid, but it’s not. Every smartphone owner and social media user gets tracked by algorithms. How long are you on for? What purchases do you make? And so on.
Then, they compare your data to that of millions of other people. That’s why algorithms are great at predicting what we’ll do next.
If the algo reveals that people with similar music tastes also favor political candidates in pictures with a green frame, a party with this information can show you exactly those pictures, thus statistically increasing their chances.
To social media platforms, you are the product. Every bit of information you share or that they can derive, they will sell to advertisers. Privacy? Forget it! Then, the advertisers use that data to get you to buy their stuff. Lanier sees this as a direct manipulation of your behavior.
Social media also tries to take away our free will. It is designed to be addictive. Behaviorists discovered that moderately unreliable feedback is more often engaging than perfectly reliable feedback. Sometimes someone likes a photo, and sometimes they don’t. This randomness can get addicting — and the algorithms know it. They adapt and incorporate randomness to get you to stay on the app as long as possible.
Lanier argues that we don’t need to rid the world of smartphones or online socialization to fix the problem. We need to rid the world of social media’s business model. He refers to it as BUMMER, which means “Behaviors of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent.” Here are its 6 components: Attention Acquisition leading to A**hole supremacy. The loudest and most unpleasant people are the ones who get the most attention. Butting into everyone’s lives. The companies record all users’ online activity. Cramming content down people’s throats. Personalized content bombards us whenever we use social media. Directing people’s behaviors in sneaky ways. “Buy this!” “Vote for that candidate!” You get the idea. Earning money by letting the worst a**holes secretly screw with everyone else. BUMMER companies get rich by selling users’ data to advertisers. Fake mobs and Faker society. Bot hordes pretend to be people, making our society more superficial. In the United States, only two companies rely solely on this business model: Facebook and Google. Many other companies have some of these components but not all. The problem isn’t social media in general. It is the reliance on the manipulation of people. The author stresses that you don’t need to throw out…
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Get the complete summary in the appSocial media sites will do everything in their power to manipulate users, and we don’t even realize it.
The social media business model is shady and invasive.
People tend to act worse and exhibit less empathy when they are on social media.
"Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around culture, future, happiness—especially themes like social media sites will do everything in their power to manipulate users, and we don’t even realize it; the social media business model is shady and invasive. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Motivated to help readers with ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now explains why you should quit social media, Jaron Lanier wrote “Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now” to package those ideas for a fast, focused read. In “Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now”, Jaron Lanier focuses on ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now explains why you should quit social media. Through “Ten Arguments For …
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