In any case, the unlimited source that was touted as a gift of knowledge. It promised interconnectivity but has become quite a labyrinthine place. The Web of today penetrates deep into nearly every corner of life. It affects our cognitive functions and emotions. It influences decision-making processes, opinions, and finally impacts human interpersonal relations. Behind the intuitiveness of social media and digital services, a machinery of algorithms is at work. It subtly manipulates our thoughts, behaviors, and preferences. These manipulations are often invisible yet incredibly powerful. These algorithms are designed with the sole aim of keeping us engaged to maximize their profits. They have started shaping not only our actions. They even shape our cognition.
This hidden influence has made psychologists, technologists, and activists vigilant. The digital world controls our minds in ways we don’t quite understand. In today’s world, we increasingly use the web for news, entertainment, and social interaction. This raises a question: do we control the internet, or does the internet control us? The Rise of the Algorithm
In many ways, algorithms have become the puppet masters of this digital age.
Every click tells a story to a sophisticated system. Every query ever searched provides information to machine learning that analyzes and predicts our behaviors. Every scroll has something to contribute to this analysis. These algorithms are designed to recommend content that keeps us on the platform longer. They aim to reap maximum ad revenue for companies such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube. What this usually means is that the content shown to us becomes curated. It is not based on our needs and desires, but rather on what encourages us to engage more. For example, when you browse your feed on Facebook, it does not update in real time. Your feed isn’t aligned with your friends’ lives.
It’s rather a very well-defined series of posts. This combination yields a maximum level of engagement. It could mean blowing up the most inflammatory news stories or promoting ideas. The algorithm doesn’t bother to figure out if that information is true. It doesn’t check if it is worthy. It is only interested in you continuing with it. More importantly, with each additional second spent scrolling, the number of advertisements appearing on the screen increases, adding to the revenue that keeps rolling in. That presupposes an amazingly deep design regarding the ways in which we interact with the world. There is evidence to prove that algorithms governing social media have created echo chambers where users are fed information to reinforce biases and previously held beliefs.
These algorithms create a bubble around the user; this is because few times has any opposition been managed to see when content will surface that was already in agreement with prior user behavior. Again, extreme is more engaging; it just creates a vicious circle with just divisionary and polarizing rhetoric/opinion. Social Media: The Echo Chamber of the Mind Social media has become the number one war zone where manipulations of minds take place. Complex algorithms, from Facebook to Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, do not only suggest what we need to see but condition the way in which we actually think about the world. These platforms are really good at instant gratification-a like, a retweet, a comment-all part of the dopamine feedback loop that keeps us coming back for more. Over the course of the past several years, however, social scientists have been warning with growing insistence of another possible consequence of social media on mental health.
The pressure of maintaining an image, comparing oneself constantly to others, being exposed to über-curated content-well, all this pushed many to states of inadequacy, anxiety, and depression.
Deeper, perhaps even way more insidiously than in its psychological toll, social media appears to shape ways of thinking and believing.
But the algorithms don’t only choose what we see; it is through them that we come to understand the world. In this respect, let’s consider how Instagram relates to body image. This photo-heavy stream of content has been criticized for perpetuating unrealistic beauty expectations. Constantly being exposed to flawless faces, expensive clothes, and exotic trips can degradingly or unrealistically show these things. What is even more concerning, however, is how the algorithms behind the app amplify these images.
This works like fuel whereby some posts, after acquiring more traction online through likes, shares, and comments, always stay at the top; hence, those on the standard of beauty or lifestyle toward which people are gravitating. In this way, social media is also not only a method of communication but also a form of social engineering that, through public opinion, calls for certain trends, values, and expectations. Advanced this way, mental manipulation has impacts not only on how the question of self-viewing but also on how we view ourselves within society. Fake News and Information Warfare Another dark aspect of the internet is how it has helped spread misinformation. The rise of fake news has showed just how so easy it could be to manipulate public opinion and thereby sway political outcomes. Algorithms, designed to foster engagement over veracity, only breed conspiracy theories and misinformation. Sensationalism and divisive topics are how these platforms guarantee the proliferation of information much quicker than fact-based news. Just think of the U.S. 2016 presidential election. During that time, the social media sites were replete with fabricated news. Most of those had been devised to polarize the people and decide their choice for the ballot box.
The echo of fake information was very much prominent, brought into being by the key role of bots, fake accounts, and microtargeted advertising campaigns.
Furthermore, these bad actors manipulated the algorithm-driven system and pushed polarizing content, which could easily go viral and incite engagement, irrespective of whether information was accurate or not.
But the problem of fake news does not stay within the domains of politics.
For instance, the internet has been leading the way in touting life-threatening misinformation about vaccines in health. This has led to the resurgence of preventable diseases that earlier had almost gotten eradicated. The most common way that false claims about the side effects of vaccines find their way to being disseminated is via some viral posts and groups from social media; they convince a great deal of people not to get themselves immunized. Sensationalism, empowered through algorithms, overpowers veracity. Algorithms filter what we get to know and give prominence to contents that generate more engagement, virtually dictating both what we actually know and the manner in which we think or act on a piece of news. The Addiction Factor: How the Web Controls Our Attention The most insidious effect of the web is the hostage it takes on our minds. Infinite scroll, auto-playing videos, notifications-endless features ingeniously designed for web addiction. That’s because, on social media sites, streaming services, and even news sources, companies actively manipulate the brain’s reward system-the psychology of addiction-to keep their users around longer than they originally intended. It is not an accident that, increasingly, psychologists and behavioral scientists speak out on behalf of the many ways these platforms manipulate our attention. Technology used by companies in social media and digital entertainment is designed to hijack our attention at the expense of our well-being.
Abuses are using mostly variable reward systems through which the user never knows just when he or she will receive their reward and about which it is, accordingly, so much harder to prevent oneself from turning to.
Every time a notification pops up, when we get a new like, or there is some viral video recommended to us, our brains just burst with dopamine, wanting more.
This design is no longer about giving us information; it’s about keeping us online.
Studies show the average amount of time people spend on social media per day is 2 hours and 31 minutes.
These algorithms are so designed that, while learning our behavior, they predict and show what will keep us on the platform longer, hence creating a cycle very hard to break. These sites and platforms have been so designed as to addict users, not for minutes but hours. This addiction, again, has its impacts. Scientific evidence has shown that excessive screen time is associated with poor sleep, a shortening attention span, and increased anxiety and depression. While digital screens are increasingly begging for our attention, it is steadily destroying a capacity to think deeply about the world and to engage meaningfully. Shaping Our Identity and Behavior But perhaps the most insidious aspect of the web’s influence touches on how it shapes our identities and behaviors.
We think of our lives on the screen as divorced from “real” life, but the boundaries are blurring. As we consume the content online, we internalize the values and beliefs. We also internalize the behaviors being sold to us, whether more or less consciously. From the social media influencers marketing a particular way of living, to the algorithms completing our shopping, it gets pushed upon us. The ads we are exposed to, the content we use, and even the subscriptions shape who we become without our conscious acknowledgment. We have been living in a very commercially driven society consumed by individuals whose identity has been molded around brands and experiences, which are finely catered to, matching our online behaviors. Communication between humans has evolved through the revolution of the internet. Memes, online identities, and social media languages have formed a whole new way of self-expression in ways that prioritize quick reactions over thoughtful discourses. As people become more and more invested in maintaining a particular online persona, the pressure to conform to online standards of behavior and appearance has never been greater. In many ways, the internet has transformed into one giant social experiment in which it slowly becomes impossible to distinguish reality from virtual life.
The Invisible Hand of Manipulation
We want to be thought of as free agents, people who decide on things through the power of rational thinking, reason, and personal opinion.
Actually, it is the internet that keeps working in the background to shape our perceptions, desires, and actions through the big web it has spun with algorithms, social network sites, and behavioral advertisements.
The digital world is one of not convenience, but of control.
Through curated news feeds, fake news, and addictive content, it shapes our minds in ways we are still to understand.
As we sink deeper into the digital world, it should be realized that we are not passive recipients of information; rather, it is created by algorithms, platforms, and systems that fuel the internet-proactively creating who we are and the way we go about our daily activities. The real question is whether we can reclaim our minds or the web will keep changing us in ways we are yet to understand.