Social Media Engineering

Social media has become an important of our live. I the last 5 years the behaviour of people has changed a lot. This is a result of social media. Although social media has many positive aspects there are also dangers hidden in the use of social media.
Following a 4 part interview by Richard D Hall regarding this subject. The notes are my personal opinion about this subject

Part 1

contents part 1
Until 2:22 Niel is setting the context by acting how people react nowadays.
A Lot has changed in the last 5 years social media was less well used back then
Internet was like a library.But now with the coming of the smart phone and socialmedia sites internet has become like an umbilical cord. However like anything Social media is just medium. And as with any medium social media can be used for the bad or the good.Social media encourages people to fall into patterns.Eventually they start to act like an Actor. The wealth of information on the internet leads to guillable acceptance of almost anything. People are not checking sources. In a way the anonymity of the internet leads to the same negative even sometimes criminal behaviour as people display in a large city.



Contents part 2

Niel: talks about people being 'in love' with the smartphone or at least in a love like state (dopamine response). The reduction of social skills. As a result social media makes people less social. Eventual People are showing signs not unlike 'the drugseeking behaviour'.Google and phone checking replaces conversation at an alarming rate. 'The Smiling depression' creates internal loneliness because the whole point of FB seems to be to impress people that aren't actually there.

Richard summorizes : 'people are trying to show their live is perfect but fact they are lonely in real life'

Niel :lying is general consensus they lie or ommit the truth to make them look better'.
Furthermore people are gambling with social information to get appraised by other people.
Only publish information that other people approve. Eventualy they sending out only information in order to get likes.
Likes become addictive and also crushing when no response is given
As a result sooner or later the FB profile will not be about 'you' but just about catering the community The reaction on this is it to alter behaviour to be more aligned with the FB profile.

Richard gives an example: 'people exaggerating. People usually lie by ommision just editing the highlights forgetting the negative stuff.'
And as a result it breeds depression. a feedback loop of narcisism and depression is the result

Richard questions : 'are people being manipulated into these kind of behaviours ?'

Niel continues with the Kubark Document , a mind control research experiment by the CIA in the 1960's. Basically the kubark document is a torture manual and still used today. Within it methods to make people more malable for interrogation.Too much Isolation and over stimulation and at a certain point the brain snaps.
A bizarre fact is that social media includes the very same circumstances. 'Isolation and over stimulation.'




Niel goes on with the kubark document and makes connections with the CIA and FB.
James W.Breyer investor FB at initial setup maybe connected to the CIA.
And he has a connections to In-Q-Te. In-Q-Tel has mostly to do with data mining at a massive scale.Sean Parker the masterhacker of the CIA suddenly got involved with FB now he is involved in spottify.

Niel Theorizes: 'Combine that with that somehow facebook mimics the ideas of the Kubark document and it starts to look rather strange. Coincidence ?'

Richard continues by saying
'Internet has changed. In the past people used a variety of websites and now most people only 2 or 3 . Some people even seeing internet as just being facebook.
Niel : Sure There are a lot of positive aspects Facebook but it becomes a problem if FB becomes your only outlet to interact. '



Orchestration in setting up FB in relation with customer driven development.

Niel shows images from an exhibition by Antoine geiger :

'Antoine geiger images.. exibition soul steam. Showing disinterest in immediate social circle in favour of the social media contacts on the smartphone.
Niel : Makes a association with a zombie smartphone accopalyse...
Rude behaviours on social media , ensulting people. People are being arrested for Facebook harrasment.'

Richard IS FB steered by CIA ? Is the whole thing manipulated ?

Richard Compares : Facebook with '___' in the 1960..

'___' was introduced by CIA. Refering John L potash's new book 'Drugs as weapons against us'.
Al the celebrity promotors of '___' seem to have been connected with the CIA.
'___' was used to neutralize student rootgrass and antiwar movement. Subjects became inactive and tainted with criminality.The mainstream media further sigmatised '___' users.

Niel continues (Note :compares slacktivism with hippie movement ?)

FB leads to slacktivism... although FB seems to be doing a lot of good in reality is this keeping people inside a social media box. This is inherent on the FB mechanism. (!)

Richard talks further about the show 'you're being framed'. Sick morbid humour now being accepted as the norm on FB and society. The nature of how people behave is being changed by the medium they're in. Design or Coincidence FB promotes the worst kinds of behaviour in people.

Richard asks :Is FB used to dumb down society or to just cause a distraction ?

Niel : The people's reaction is 'who cares?'. It's Divide and concur for elitists.
15 years ago the internet was a collection of websites. Google is now the only site most people use.
In that regard the internet was become smaller. Now there is only the illusion of choice back then there was a real choice. As a result 95% of hits on websites is caused by page one of google. Google promotes pretty much only cooperate sources The google algoritm favours people that pay money (Note :I know that from first hand!)
Sadly enough other search engines more or less return the same results as google

nowadays google it … means put all your faith into one cooperation.

So what to do asks Richard to niel

Niel : Self reflection is FB the one outlet ? Is it the only way to get a positive feeling about yourself? If so always build a real social life..

a reply to: frenchfries

Nice layout. Of course most people aren't interested in hearing this. They prefer to remain ignorant to the truth. They're docile and compliant.

If you shake them they groan and turn over, going back to sleep. This process of becoming dependent on whats on screen began a long time before the inter webs. They sucked everyone into movies then television, computers and finally, personal devices.

The only difference is the size of the screen and nowadays, the illusion of interaction.

This is a fascinating thread. Ive played the same online game for a long time, not so much now but lets just say that the more than a decades worth of role playing a factitious life, and that has given me some perspective that bares striking relations to the things discussed here.

Im going to digest this a little further as ive started another thread that may well bare more than just an interesting parallel in regards to dopamine and the reward systems of complex games (the second link in my signature)

a reply to: intrptr

Nice layout. Of course most people aren't interested in hearing this. They prefer to remain ignorant to the truth. They're docile and compliant.

Thanks I do agree most people will probably find that this post is against 'progress'.

This process of becoming dependent on whats on screen began a long time before the inter webs. They sucked everyone into movies then television, computers and finally, personal devices.

Indeed it begun long ago.

If we as a spiecies really want to survive we have to control technique or it will control us. But unlike television social networks don't have an off knob. Being part of social networks is an ever ongoing process. Also i like to add that in my view FB is nothing more that 'a man in the middle attack' on social interaction. Many often younger people now don't interact in a normal way they talk to each other whilst watching phones or tablets , get irritated if phones don't work and even 8 year olds start to complain about cellphone coverage. It's the younger generation that I'm afraid of. I a way humans are like animals if there isn't social interaction at a young age it becomes very difficult to learn social skills at a later age. I'm really about what the effect will be on our society....

Thanks for your remark on the layout , I'm trying as good as I can to make my posts better

Have a Beer

a reply to: Biigs

given me some perspective that bares striking relations to the things discussed here.

hmmm... just curious what was the game ?

parallel in regards to dopamine and the reward systems of complex games (the second link in my signature)

thanks for the link ! digesting...

a reply to: frenchfries

It's the younger generation that I'm afraid of. (In) a way humans are like animals if there isn't social interaction at a young age it becomes very difficult to learn social skills at a later age. I'm really (concerned) about what the effect will be on our society....

Automatons. They won't need robot drones or AI, they'll have a whole army of human robots. Conscious-less, auto pilot, drones.

They did studies with young spider monkeys that reflect what you said about developing social skills in children. When they are lacking, disfunction and isolation are the result. People can google Harlows monkeys to watch disturbing social experiments on monkey infants. Not for the faint...

About :40 into here...

a reply to: intrptr

aaahhhh you making me cry poor monkeys

Well I ,also mean that a bit so my response is tragicomical . Serious these monkeys are damaged for life poor monkeys.
...and poor phonezombie kids.

a reply to: frenchfries

Kids should be made to put down their phones long enough to watch the monkey videos.

How much is the parent to blame? Not teaching children coping skills, like how to deal with rejection, teasing and peer pressure. Simple enough, right?

interesting topic, I don't have a lot of time to delve into all of the material but I just watched the first section after reading through your synopsis. Thanks for sharing!