Are You Living in the Matrix?
/By Dr. Lynn Webster, PNN Columnist
A recent Netflix documentary, "The Social Dilemma," illustrates how social media networks are selling each of us as commodities to advertisers. Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, points out that platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram make money by allowing advertisers to target members who are interested in their products or services.
That means anyone who uses "free" social media are not just consumers. We are the products being sold.
We’re allowing our brains to be manipulated by sophisticated marketing and artificial intelligence (AI) designed to change our behavior. Each time we “like” something or stay on a web page for more than a second, we provide technology companies with additional knowledge about who we are and what makes us tick. Each click helps AI become better at manipulating us, deciding what we see and what we don’t.
Because the things that fill one person's newsfeed may never make their way into another’s, social media networks shape our version of reality while they polarize society. Unfortunately, “fake news” is sometimes more profitable to advertisers than real news. We have segued from living in the Information Age to subsisting in the Disinformation Age. This is especially frightening when we see how much influence conspiracy theories have in our culture today.
According to the documentary, we have essentially isolated ourselves in a bubble of technology. Loneliness and depression are rampant in our society, and people interact less in the real world than they do online. When others "like" our posts, we get a hormonal rush of chemicals -- and when it dissipates, we crave another hit. The need for approval and belonging keeps us clicking.
As "The Social Dilemma" asks, "How do you wake up from the matrix when you don't know you are in the matrix?"
People with Pain Live in the Matrix, Too
The online audience for messages has become fragmented for people with different views. This limits the reach of any particular message to those who share the same beliefs or problems. That puts people living with pain who reach out to others through social media at a disadvantage they may not even understand.
The documentary makes the point that the only industry besides social media that uses the term “users” is the illicit drug world. People living with pain or addiction are vulnerable to the same dopamine rush that keeps us clicking to receive affirmation from others who share our experiences.
People in pain desperately want to be heard by people who can help them. But, because of AI, only those who already tend to be supportive of people in pain are likely to see their posts.
The very nature of chronic pain and addiction narrows people’s worlds. So does social media. It has a compounding effect. As a society, we need to understand that our world becomes narrower with each click.
Think of those you unfriend or the people who block you on social media. They are the ones you need to hear from, because they are people who have different views from yours. It may feel comfortable to stay within your own lane, but that won't help if your goal is to understood the world and help change it for the better.
Bursting Your Information Bubble
There are general principles we can all use to sort the truth from the lies on the internet. One is to recognize that if you have a strong emotional response to an online message, you may have become the successful target of manipulation. Take a deep breath and tell yourself the manipulators found a way to trigger your dopamine release. Remember that the message you saw may be only partially true -- or not true at all.
Before you share a post or believe it yourself, verify the source. Check out the veracity of the story on Snopes or some other fact checker. Seek out sources other than those that appear in your timeline or on your news feed. Instead of trusting your search engine, proactively log onto news sites with opposing viewpoints.
If the stories you find feature quotes, go to the original source and see if the message was taken out of context. The greater your emotional reaction to the message, the greater the chances are that it is inaccurate, misleading information.
“The Social Dilemma” website offers a toolkit to “realign your relationship with technology” and explore these issues -- including what social media is doing to our democracy -- more deeply.
We can't ban the internet. We wouldn't want to, even if we could. There are obvious benefits to digital communication, and we can't put the genie back into the bottle.
However, if we don’t want to be trapped in a dystopia where humanity is controlled by a manipulated reality, we have to realize that "free" online services are anything but that. The cost is the truth. When we sacrifice a balanced view of the world because of our desire to belong, we risk locking ourselves in the matrix.
Lynn R. Webster, MD, is a vice president of scientific affairs for PRA Health Sciences and consults with the pharmaceutical industry. He is author of the award-winning book The Painful Truth, and co-producer of the documentary It Hurts Until You Die. Opinions expressed here are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views or policy of PRA Health Sciences. You can find Lynn on Twitter: @LynnRWebsterMD.
