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Zusammenfassung von Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Name: Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Rating: 4.2 (232 reviews)
Author: Jaron Lanier

Jaron Lanier

Regain your autonomy online

4.2 (232 Bewertungen)

30 Min.

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Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now
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What’s in it for me? Learn how to regain your autonomy online.

In the online world, cats are as much associated with memes as with meows, and they seem to achieve virality with the same unconcern and nonchalance that they bring to other favorite activities, be it munching some catnip or taking a catnap. Dogs, however, haven’t reached this same level of online prevalence. So why cats?

Well, it may have something to do with autonomy. Unlike dogs, which humans domesticated millennia ago, cats came to us of their own accord and, at least in part, tamed themselves. This feline tendency toward self-determination is still apparent today, especially online.

Dog memes often showcase feats of training and discipline; cat memes, in contrast, are cute and hilarious because they capture odd and unpredictable actions.

So what is it about this online incorrigibility that we find so irresistible?

In today’s high-tech world, it’s not at all unreasonable to fear that we’re losing our free will, or that we’re being manipulated at every turn – that, in short, we’re becoming more like dogs and less like cats.

These blinks are about how to achieve feline autonomy and avoid canine dependence in the online sphere. They’re not only an impassioned argument for deleting your social media accounts; they’re an education in exactly how major companies like Google and Facebook are manipulating you at every turn.

In these blinks, you’ll also learn

why social media is a BUMMER;
why randomness trumps reliability; and
why Silicon Valley kids attend Waldorf schools.

Argument 1: Social media can manipulate your behavior, putting your free will under threat.

You may not know it, but you’re in a cage. It’s a tiny cage – so small that it fits snugly in your pocket – but that doesn’t mean there’s not enough space for you to slip right into it.

What’s more, like a lab animal, you’re being watched, manipulated and analyzed while inside this cage.

If this sounds a bit paranoid, just consider the facts. You, like nearly everyone else, probably own a smartphone – that’s the cage. Naturally, you’re not literally trapped inside, but whenever you use it to log in to social media, you are being watched and manipulated, not by researchers in white coats, but by algorithms.

The data on you compiled by these algorithms – when you log in, how long you stay logged in for, what you buy – is then compared with the data of millions of other people. This enables the algorithms to make predictions about how you will act.

How? Let’s say that an algorithm, after comparing a boatload of data, reveals that people who eat the foods you eat tend to find a particular political candidate less appealing when her picture is bordered in yellow than when it’s bordered in green.

This may not seem like a spectacular or sinister discovery, but let’s say that this politician’s campaign team gets its hands on that information. If they send you campaign ads featuring her green-bordered likeness, you will, statistically speaking, be more likely to vote for her.

And social media companies have no qualms about selling your information. After all, you’re not their client; you’re their product.

Their clients are advertisers – the companies that buy the data about you and then use it to convince you to buy certain products or vote for a certain candidate. In the author’s view, this amounts to direct manipulation of your behavior.

Sure, advertising has always been manipulative, but it’s only recently that ads could be tailored based on your personal preferences and online actions. Of course, this tailoring only has a statistical effect – that is, it’s not 100-percent accurate. You might, unlike most people whose diet is similar to yours, hate green, and therefore not vote for that green-bordered candidate.

However, over an entire population, statistical effects are reliable. Therefore, it’s more likely than not that you are being manipulated.

Social media platforms are designed to be addictive.

Imagine you’re a child, and whenever you say please, you’re instantly given a piece of candy. Unsurprisingly, this would prompt you to say please quite often.

Now imagine that, sometimes, saying please fails to result in the desired sweet. Given this occasional failure, do you think you’d start saying please more or less?

Argument 2: The social media business model is invasive and outright dangerous.

House paint used to contain lead, but, eventually, the evidence of the dangers of lead became impossible to ignore. However, this fact didn’t cause a mass outcry against people painting their houses. Rather, after a period of protest and petitioning, lead-based paints became nonstandard.

We should approach social media in a similar way. We don’t need to do away with the internet or smartphones or online socialization; that would be like banning the painting of houses instead of banning a certain kind of house paint.

Argument 3: Social media can turn people into assholes.

Some say you should choose your romantic partner based on how you act when you’re with that person. Well, this nugget of wisdom isn’t only applicable to partnerships – it is also true of technology.

Social media can encourage asshole behavior. Insulting posts, condescending comments, trolling – they’re all very common on social media. Even back in the late 1970s, when social media was pretty primitive, the author noticed that he acted like more of an asshole when he used it.

Argument 4: Social media contributes to the mass production of misinformation.

Online, as in life, our choices are often guided by others. Need a good doctor? You’ll probably conduct a Google search and compare various reviews. Trying to find a funny video to watch? You’ll probably select one with millions of views.

But here’s the thing. That doctor popped up high in your search results, and that video has tons of views, for the same reason: fake people.

Arguments 5 and 6: Social media pit people against each other and destroy our capacity for empathy.

Fire!

The effects of shouting this alarming monosyllable in a crowded building could be disastrous. It might trigger a stampede, and people might get crushed. However, if you yell it upon noticing that flames are pouring from an occupied vehicle’s engine, you might save the person inside.

Argument 7: Negative emotions are the lifeblood of social media.

Spending time in a world without context or empathy is a definite recipe for unhappiness. But BUMMER companies are draining your happiness in other ways, too.

Social media platforms inevitably establish unreasonably high standards for physical beauty and social standing. After all, online, it’s not just your neighbors or your colleagues that you’ll be comparing yourself to; it’s everyone on that social media platform. And let’s face it – you’re unlikely to be the most gorgeous or accomplished individual out there.

Argument 8: Social media companies make a lot of money from what you give up for free.

You’ve probably heard the talk: soon, many jobs will become automated, and the people who worked those jobs will become redundant.

Just take translators, for instance. Today, rather than employing a professional translator, people often use free translation software such as Google Translate. Though such software is often referred to as “intelligent,” it actually relies entirely on information that Google takes from users.

Argument 9: Social media platforms have a negative impact on our political sphere.

Citizens of democratic countries tend to believe in progress. They don’t think, for instance, that the country they live in will cease to be democratic; rather, they see democracy as the foundation for a series of other positive developments.

But BUMMER is changing this too. Here’s how:

Argument 10: Social media constitute a new spiritual framework that turns human beings into something that can be “hacked.”

It’s accurate to compare using BUMMER services to being in a cage, and to liken BUMMER companies to behavioral scientists who are constantly analyzing and manipulating your behavior. However, this comparison fails to capture the magnitude of the BUMMER phenomenon.

After all, it’s not just a few people being manipulated in a few isolated studies – it’s society as a whole.

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Worum geht es in Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now?

Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now (2018) is a modern-day cri de coeur. It offers, with ten distinct arguments, an all but irrefutable case for deleting your social media accounts. From their ethically dubious data-selling practices to the way they manipulate users, current social media companies are doing society a major disservice. Your best option right now is to delete your accounts until better options emerge.

Bestes Zitat aus Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now

God only knows what its doing to our childrens brains. – Sean Parker

—Jaron Lanier

Wer Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now lesen sollte

Social media users
Smartphone owners
Sociologists

Über den Autor

Jaron Lanier, one of the founding fathers of virtual reality, is a visual artist and composer. In addition to writing computer philosophy, he’s delivered multiple popular TED talks. TIME magazine named him as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2010. His previous books, Who Owns the Future? and You Are Not a Gadget, were both international best sellers.

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