Exploiting the Way We Act
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It's obvious the ways that companies aim to manipulate us. Whether in the ads that it serves or the data it collects, every single action that we do on almost any app is tracked and traced back. The only way to keep the data flowing is to keep our usage high.
For the past few years, companies have started developing apps that are less aimed to solve a problem, and rather look to creating a need, a desire to join their app in a fear of being forgotten by your friends and loved ones. Tech companies have made social media feel necessary. Even nowadays, if you don’t provide a company with your social media accounts or they can’t find an account for you, they aren’t even sure if you exist.
There has become an expectation to be online. This expectation has led to companies making more and more decisions that work against you, saying that “we’re just giving people what they want” when they are actually exploiting your natural vulnerabilities.
“Respecting the vulnerabilities of our species involves a nuanced understanding of human psychology, well-being, and how we can be tricked into unsatisfying cycles of seeking and distraction.”
The Center for Humane Technology describes how companies have started to tout the line of manipulation and exploitation, saying “Persuasive technology has gained the ability to predict and control human behavior, to do what magicians and con artists have done for centuries but with individualized precision at a global scale.”
Instead of making products that help people create better and more unified civilizations, we are instead being manipulated, and often controlled to think in certain ways, with tech companies having an extensive background in what makes us tick and get us to think in certain ways.
If companies continue to design in hostile ways that do not reflect the user’s best interests, we can easily start down an unrecoverable path. We are more aware of our psychology than ever before and should be using this information to improve ourselves, not extract every movement and sell it to the highest bidder.
Center for Humane Technology. (n.d.). MODULE 2: RESPECTING HUMAN NATURE. Center for Humane Technology | Exploiting Human Vulnerabilities. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://app.participate.com/assignments/module-2-respecting-human-nature/676e4f41-a0da-4731-9824-caf0eecf46ac#chapter-3