Day4 - The Problem with Social Media

I'm not a very social person. I often find it exhausting just to be in the company of other people. However, recently I've been lead into spending with time with groups of other people. It's common these days for groups to be using some kind of technology. My participation in very limited in those things. It's not that I'm trying to stay aloof from the group. It's not that I'm "too old" to use it. It's not that I don't understand how to use it. It's because I understand what it enables other people to do.

There are several apps (or actual software) that is said to help "build communities" and "facilitate communications" and that kind of thing. Most of them are free to use. It's useful to pause to consider how the provider stays in business. Someone has said, "If you are not the customer, you're the product." When you look into a company's business model, many of them make money by collecting and selling data. Your data. My data. Any other data that they can retrieve from your device. They send trackers. Through web pages. Through email. Through messages. Through that funny meme that you just had to share. 

It's not just annoying. By treating human people as commodities, they are negating their human dignity. For me, that's what bothers me. There are some other things that bother me, but this is the one that I can't make peace with. 

Are there exceptions? Yes, there are. In a future blog, I'll let you know how I evaluate any kind of technology that I am considering. Probably many future blogs. There's a lot to consider.