We — ‘Humans OR Products???’
2021, technologically the most advanced era of history of mankind and what we have got, stress, anxieties, and depressions more than ever in history. There is fakeness, everywhere we see. The relationships are fake, the life we show online is fake, the friendships are confined to meme sharing and the success is defined by the amount of traffic on our page and number of likes on our posts.
We were humans and we had some values. Now we have become products, YES “PRODUCTS”. This is because it is all about business and we are being sold for the sake of business and money. When I think of all these, questions come into my mind: Have we really progressed? Are we really satisfied? If you say YES then you are lying to yourself nothing more, because the analytics and researches say opposite.
The level of satisfaction within the peoples is at its lowest of all times.
What are the reasons for that?
Don’t we have more food to eat than ever before?
Don’t we have better life standards than ever before?
Still, why aren’t we satisfied?
If you ask me, I would say it is all the doings of social media and its integration with business. The businesses play with human psychology and urge the desires of adding unnecessary values to people’s lives by selling their products. All this is done systematically and thoughtfully.
The data about us on social media is analyzed and processed, using machine learning algorithms, to make the virtual models of us, so they can know more about the personalities of each one of us. By doing that they get access to our minds, thoughts and they know what, when and how we think and feel.
Have you ever observed that you talked to a friend about some kind of dress and after a few moments of that, while using Facebook you came to see ads about clothing brands and designers? Yes, definitely you have experienced that. This is, when we become products. We use social media apps for free, what does the owner get in return? Have you ever asked this to yourself? The answer is simple, we are the products and our data is used to persuade us and create a desire in our minds to buy things from the sponsors of the social media platform we use.
If it were only confined to business then it might have been acceptable to some extent but according to the new reports, the social media is being used to mold the views and opinions of people, by some powerful organizations, according to their expectations. There are documentaries, one named “The Social Dilemma” the other one “The Great Hack”. This article is not a movie review but to some extent it is inspired by these.
“The Great Hack” shows that how the US elections were hacked, indirectly, by an organization named “The Cambridge Analytica” using Facebook as the medium and it is believed that the data of people on Facebook was used to alter the opinions of people to get the desired candidate elected. This seems scary because if that is the case, we are not free anymore, we are puppets of these organizations who can make us think and react in whatever way they want us.
All the discussion doesn’t encourage you not to use social media. This article is a reminder of the lost purpose and soul of social media, which was basically connecting people. The raw purpose was making Earth a Global Village. Today the social media and its fake attractions are separating people more than they are connecting.
So, use social media for connecting people, not for making others feel inferior than you, not for playing with human psychology, not for changing opinions of people, not for controlling the minds of individuals. We are humans and each one of us is born free and should be allowed to enjoy freedom of body, mind and soul.
