The dark side of new technologies

The documentary "The dilemma of social networks" (Netflix) reveals an alarming panorama about the consequences of the misuse of new communication technologies.

Screen addiction, generalized depressive symptoms and manipulation of behaviors for commercial purposes. To what extent have certain advances for humanity become detrimental to our coexistence and quality of life?

• Related article: "Addiction to social networks: the abuse of the virtual"

The opinion of the creators

"The dilemma of social networks" is created, produced and directed by those who, occupying high positions in companies such as Twitter, Google, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, helped to build the "computer monster" that today is part of the daily lives of millions of people.

The documentary starts from a concern: perhaps we have been naive about the consequences of the tools that we have created ourselves. This is so to the point where many of those who created these sites and social networks are now recognized as "addicted" to these tools.

They feel regret and fear for having been part of this process, and to these feelings is added the dreaded suspicion that certain humanity things are getting out of hand, and that in a sense we are conducting ourselves on a social level in accordance with the ancient parable of the “monkey with razor".

An interesting aspect of the documentary is that it avoids any “conspiracy” temptation by revealing that ultimately “there is no bad guy” (there is no bad guy). What, then, is the problem?

The birth of "Frankenstein"

With the Internet industry, the most subtle, complex and effective marketing mechanisms have been created in the history of mankind. Trillion dollar markets are managed through the Internet.

If you are an entrepreneur, you will know that never before has the audience you want to target been predicted with such accuracy a product or service you offer, the moment you do it, as well as shaping the behaviors of your potentials consumers.

Now, how is this accomplished? Very simple: great predictions can only be made from having a lot of data. The more information you handle about users, the more certain you have that your advertising will work.

Many believe that Google is simply a search engine. What they often overlook is that the business model of these companies is based on finding out as much as possible about our tastes, behaviors and tendencies, all of which is registered in each of our actions on the web.

To put it in a nutshell, what tools like Facebook Ads do (in the same way that videos work for example recommended from YouTube) is to segment audiences in an ultra specialized way, considering age, gender, geographical location, interests and other variables. For what purpose is this done? Very simple: in order to attract potential customers for certain products offered by advertisers who are the ones who, ultimately, hire their services.

And this brings us to the "dark side of the business", that is, to the questions regarding the ethical limits involved in this process.

Manipulation is the key to the matter

If we live in a big city, surely the following image will not be unknown to us: when entering a place public (such as a means of transport or a bar) we see 90% of people absorbed in the screen of their phones mobiles. Possibly on a smaller scale, within a family group, something similar happens in everyday life.

As the documentary puts it, "it seems that the world has gone mad or that it has fallen into a kind of spell." What happens, among other things, is that those who designed the system did so with the aim of capturing the user's attention as much as possible.

The system is programmed to refine itself in this regard and provide us with pleasure. It is as if we were pointing these artificial intelligence engines at us to increasingly relearn what would cause a "successful" response from the user.

In other words, the computer is given a command: "I want this result." And then the computer learns to do it (that's where the term "machine learning" comes from). A) Yes, every day the system improves by choosing the correct advertisements in the correct order so that you spend more time interested in these contents.

What the documentary reveals is that Internet users (and today, who is not?) we have become, without realizing it, our own consumer good. To put it in a nutshell: "If you don't pay for the product, you are the product."

What is an algorithm?

As is well explained in the documentary, "algorithms are opinions in code." They are not objective, they do not correspond to any reality but are configured according to a certain definition of success, and this definition of success is none other than profit.

An example of this is how search engines "populate" information about certain topics based on the place on the planet from which the search is carried out or depending on what Google knows about your interests and pleasures.

For example, if you Google: "climate change is ..." depending on various factors, you will find that it is a threat, that it is inevitable, that it is a sham, and so on... Another example is the famous "fake news" which, according to studies, multiplies six times faster than news true. We know this from certain substances that were supposed to magically cure COVID-19.

In other words: If you have a tendency to believe in conspiracy theories, the system will encourage you to find content that complies with these theories. If you have an affinity for a certain political party or have expressed hatred towards certain minorities, which will the algorithm is not to show you any truth but to "shake your ghosts" in order to capture more and more your attention.

Hence, it is said in the documentary that These processes are rapidly corroding the social fabric. Well, if each one is shown the truth that makes them up, they are linked with people who think the same and they are given arguments that justify their beliefs (reaching absurd extremes such as flat Earth) this explains that there are more and more crises in the systems democratic.

Author: Guillermo Miatello, director of the Academia de Psicoanálisis Madrid SL.