I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat; they're doing behavior experiments on our brains and we seem to okay with that.

That sounds like something someone wearing a tinfoil hat would say. Rightly so. But how else would I keep Major League Baseball from listening to my thoughts (#sarcasm)?!

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Check out Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now - <p><b>AS SEEN IN THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY <i>THE SOCIAL DILEMMA<br> </i>A <i>WIRED ”</i>ALL-TIME FAVORITE BOOK”<br> A <i>FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK<br> </i>“THE CONSCIENCE OF SILICON VALLEY”- GQ </b> <br><br> <b>“Profound . . . Lanier shows the tactical value of appealing to the conscience of the individual. In the face of his earnest argument, I felt a piercing shame about my own presence on Facebook. I heeded his plea and deleted my account.”<br> - Franklin Foer, <i>The New York Times Book Review</i><br><br> “Mixes prophetic wisdom with a simple practicality . . . Essential reading.”<br> <i>- The New York Times</i> (Summer Reading Preview) <br><br> </b>You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that we’re better off without them. In <i>Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now</i>, Lanier, who participates in no social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for all of us to leave these dangerous online platforms.<br><br> Lanier’s reasons for freeing ourselves from social media’s poisonous grip include its tendency to bring out the worst in us, to make politics terrifying, to trick us with illusions of popularity and success, to twist our relationship with the truth, to disconnect us from other people even as we are more “connected” than ever, to rob us of our free will with relentless targeted ads. How can we remain autonomous in a world where we are under continual surveillance and are constantly being prodded by algorithms run by some of the richest corporations in history that have no way of making money other than being paid to manipulate our behavior? How could the benefits of social media possibly outweigh the catastrophic losses to our personal dignity, happiness, and freedom? Lanier remains a tech optimist, so while demonstrating the evil that rules social media business models today, he also envisions a humanistic setting for social networking that can direct us toward a richer and fuller way of living and connecting with our world.</p> by Jaron Lanier on Bookshop.org US!

Henry Holt and Co.Henry Holt and Co.

Over the last 15+ years as a culture, we've been witness to a series of experiments that have pragmatically unspooled the inner workings of the human psyche. Yes, advertising has been supplanted by manipulation at scale, thanks to the internet+data science +social pressure.

That's why I encourage you to give this book a read. Though it's from 2018, I've seen it in the front tables of local bookstores again lately. Even before the events of the past few weeks, it's more germane than ever.

Since libraries are included on the NYC+ Basic Subscription Plan (aka taxes) I got it on Libby. 

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

AS SEEN IN THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY THE SOCIAL DILEMMA A WIRED “ALL-TIME FAVORITE BOOK” A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK “THE CONSCIENCE OF SILICON VALLEY”- GQ “Profound… Lanier shows the tactical value of appealing to the conscience of the individual. In the face of his earnest argument, I felt a piercing shame about my own presence on Facebook. I heeded his plea and deleted my account.” - Franklin Foer,…

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

This made me delete LinkedIn from my phone and iPad. My final "Social Media. I only have it because I'm afraid I'll starve without it. We'll see what the rest of the book brings. It may be time to let it go. I'll have to find some other way to grow The Unstreamables. Something tells me the algo is going to hate this post.

Jaron Lanier, the author looks like if the words "2000s Wired Magazine Back Issue" came to life and that brings me some hope. When the internet was full of optimism, freedom and promise and weird musical instruments.

We don't know how the buttons do what they do, but we know what they do when we punch those buttons! We've leapfrogged 100+ years of neuroscience through the pursuit of advertising and now it's being leveraged against us.

But am I telling you anything you don't know?

Here's Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice president of user growth at Facebook: The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we've created are destroying how society works.... No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it's not an American problem-this is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.... I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds-even though we feigned this whole line of, like, there probably aren't any bad unintended consequences...

At the outset it was for base consumerism, but there is something more nefarious at work. Not all the actors are completely clear, but I'm pretty certain it's not just the good folks at Ogilvy and Y&R anymore. No, they seem noble by comparison.

I'm beginning to think (#sarcasm) that surveillance consumerism leads to surveillance culture which leads to exactly what we're afraid of. Exactly what's been happening

The divides in society are being magnified by the 'distraction rectangles' in our pockets. The little differences? They're being taken advantage to divide us.

And we're addicted to these platforms. It's not hyperbole. It's a literal addiction to these platforms. It's behavioral, maybe you call it obsession, maybe you think of it as something more like being a couch potato, but it's far more unhealthy.

Final Word:

These binary divides are beneath us. Among those of us who don't own yachts, spaceships and islands anyway... it's just a distraction. Don't believe them.

Next week? A new episode!