Words that caught me: DS is for 'Doom-Scrolling' and 'Screen-Addiction'
How
would you compare your screen time now,
And
before COVID19?
Is
your usage more or less?
If
you are like most of us,
I bet
your screen time has increased tremendously.
The
lockdown, and our desire to know what’s going on,
Has
led us to search for more information and entertainment, online.
That’s
understandable, and it would be perfectly okay
If
this was just a passing cloud.
But there
is mortal danger lurking in the shadows
Of this
innocuous scrolling and tapping.
Bots
and algorithms.
Bots that
take advantage of our psychographics
To spread
doom, gloom, fear and misinformation.
Algorithms
that take advantage of our likes
To
hook us to our screens
And
turn scrolling into an addiction.
Almost
everything you engage with online today
Becomes
a data point in you profile,
Which
algorithms pick to serve you more personalized content
To keep
you engaged – no, hooked – to it.
The
rise of personalization and recommendation algorithms
And bots,
threatens to turn us into cyborgs.
Now
add to this, surveillance technology
That’s
intruded our lives in the name of COVID19 tracing,
And you
get a lethal cocktail of potential cyber-manipulation.
Have
you heard of TikTok?
Do
you know what it is?
No. I
didn’t, either. Until a couple of days ago.
What
caught my attention is the news
That
its parent company, ByteDance, had recently raised
A
sizable amount in investor funding,
Making
it the world’s most valued startup at $140B.
That got
me curious. What’s the fuss about?
Please
take time to read this piece about their business model.
Underlying
their rapid growth
Is a
powerful personalization and recommendation algorithm
That
aggregates media and serves you a plateful
All
day, all night, all year long…
The
algorithm is purposely built for virality
And intentionally
meant to hook you on.
And it’s
not the only one.
This business
model is all in the range right now.
Everyone
is coming for your attention.
How
will this go?
How
will an algorithm-cum-bot-run society look like?
Is
this the beginning of the end of independent thought?
Might
we lose our ability for self-awareness, solitude and reflection?
Might
this entrench implicit and unconscious biases, and intolerance?
Might
we become more susceptible to psycho-manipulation?
How
will this affect our sociability and emotional intelligence?
How
have we become unwitting victims
For
spreading doom and gloom news?
How
do we protect ourselves from sinking into the emotional quicksand
That has
become of our incessant information bingeing?
How
do we resolve and monitor these ethical concerns?
Does
doom-scrolling and screen-addiction concern you?
*'Covid-stion' is a series of questions we will be posing in the next couple of weeks, inspired by our own reflection of 'lessons learnt' from COVID-19. The questions are meant to invite self-reflection.
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