The year is 2022. The best chance you have of escaping the social experiment is by moving planets.

You don’t even have to be on the platforms yourself. You can be shown content that may be of your interest by those nearest to you, or even be connected to the content through links sent to your device. If you scour through the morning papers you’ll have a decent chance of a vast amount of news being picked up through social media. The modern day journalist can make a healthy career without moving out of their chair. But is it really news ? That’s another story.

You can be in the Far East and send a message to the furthest western point in close to a second. No matter what side of the world you are, if you are not connected to any social platforms you are now in the minority.

The reliance on cyber devices is beginning to deepen by big business and government choosing to rapidly go paperless. All of us ? We are now expected to live our lives through the lens of an app. Some places you can not even pay for parking through a pay meter anymore. Even worse, some places don’t even accept cash as legal tender !

We’re lead to believe it is the future and we should go with it or moan about it. It’s certainly happening by hook or by crook !

What a lot of people don’t know though, is the feature and use of algorithms. Okay some of us think we know, but do we really understand the complexity and the lengths these companies will go to in means of selling their products ? The amount of scandals and data beaches that we have all been involved in and we don’t even get a penny most of the time.

For those who don’t know, algorithms work by showing you content you like. All based on, well, content you LIKE. The platform you use the most will do business with consumer searchers to make you feel like your getting a good deal. You might be, but to me it seems every store permanently has 20% off.

Are these algorithms impacting us daily ? You only have to think of something and an advertisement for it will pop up in your browser.

If you’re feeling sad and lying in bed on social media, I doubt you’re going to be liking positive content. These platforms will then show you more negative content and dampen your mood even more. Not purposely ? It’s just how algorithms work ?

How many times have you scoured through a platform and put your handset down, only to pick it up and do the same moments later ?

The integration between ‘Big Tech’ companies is crucial for their services. They pass information on about you though ‘cookies’. Essentially selling your personality choices to other companies. What do you get ? More Ads!

Like something on Facebook and your newsfeed will show you the news you want to see ! Is most of it even real news ? Misinformation is on the clamp down but the only way to eradicate it is to monitor every persons account. None of us want that, do we ? We’re already starring in Big Brother !

We all live busy lives and we don’t have the time to monitor everything our phones are doing to us, never mind what it is doing to the less educated in technology. We just crack on.

They are a key component in the modern machine and we would be lost without them. Society is making it that way. It’s cost effective and maybe the solution to a lot of our current problems.

All we can do is try to monitor the most vulnerable. Get our houses in order and proceed to help our elders who are rapidly being frozen out.

You will be your child’s worst enemy if you want to monitor their device for screen time or the content they are checking. Parental controls don’t have to be on social medias terms. They can be in the house through conversation. Just remember to listen to them too, they’ll show you a thing or ten.

Safe search has vastly improved since I grew up with the internet. My suggestion would be to simply educate them better on the super powers they possess. “Son/daughter you have the world in your entire hand, what do you want to do with it !”. That doesn’t have to start tomorrow, they should be allowed to take pleasure in engaging with hilarious content in moderation. I grew up with cartoons. You grew up with ??

Sitting down with them though, you will definitely be the one being educated ! That little person is the future and has the potential to be doing a job that doesn’t even exist right now.

Good luck with the social experiment ! Oh and by the way, get ready for Google Ads through this platform ! Welcome to behind the scenes of the social experiment….. 😂

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