Open Mic
Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that basically 8 companies dictate when, who, and what people who are connected to you see or experience. At its introduction, social media was fantastic bringing to together millions of people from around the globe connecting them to friends, family, or long lost acquaintances. This technology was ground breaking and “revolutionary” to use a reference from the late Steve Jobs. But as everything else in the U.S., capitalism has taking a great technology and monopolized it to the significant benefit of a few select. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that these individuals and companies were able to develop platforms to connect people around the globe was an astonishing accomplishment, but when the technology is now reduced to only connecting people via an algorithm or sophisticated math equation, we have reduced something great into something controlling. It almost seems like a sophisticated plan of attack. Extend a benefit to millions of people allowing them to connect to family and friends playing on their emotional attachments, and then once you have them connected, introduce an algorithm that breaks the connection in lieu of more popular content leaving them in almost a worse situation than before they started. Giving someone something and then restricting its use is worse than if you never had it at all. What the social media giants figured out was that once you got millions of people hooked, restricting its use would generate a basic addition because they now cannot live without the ease of connecting to loved ones or groups with similar interest. They realized that people would pay to stay connected, initiate ads to stay connected, do all kinds of things; silly and in some case worse, just to be seen, recognized, or followed. What was at its infancy good, could be approaching dangerous because it seems non-threatening; chill, it's only social media. We need to take back control of when, who, and what we are talking to people about, and those we want to stay connected with. I still feel social media is a fantastic technology but should not govern how we connect with people in general. Thoughts and opinions welcomed.
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