You feel a faint buzz in your pocket and so you take out
your phone. It informs you that you have several new likes and messages on Facebook.
What do you do?
If you are like the vast majority of people you open your
phone, go to Facebook and read your new messages and see who liked what you
posted. You do so without thinking that this is exactly what Facebook wants you
to do. It has built an entire business empire around manipulating your
attention in ways you barely understand. It uses algorithms that are designed
not to keep you informed, but to keep you engaged on the platform. This means
ramping up your dopamine levels by regularly leading you to posts that anger you. They know that you will find it harder to step
away, that you will ultimately involve yourself with groups of like-minded
people in what is known as a filter bubble where you will rarely see anything
alternative to what you already believe, where dissident voices do not occur
and where conspiracy theories can germinate.
In my opinion, Facebook is now a worldwide problem. Bad
actors have found ways to use Facebook to foster strife and division, and
almost certainly had a significant impact on the 2016 elections. Facebook has, in
my opinion, done little enough to prevent further manipulation. And this has impacted
my profession, where tribalism is now rife, where groups exist that are closed
to anyone not already in agreement with the group ethos. What we see in
chiropractic is but a microcosm of what is happening on a global scale. I will
explore this in my next few posts.
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