BUMMER MACHINE (Social Media Platforms) “Behaviors of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent“

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In this insightful book, Jaron Lanier, Interdisciplinary Scientist at Microsoft Research and one of Virtual Reality pioneers, shares 10 compelling arguments on the need to delete our social media accounts. Before reading the book, I was already out of most of the social media platforms, and I am only present on Linkedin for now.

Jaron argues in ten ways that what has become suddenly normal—pervasive surveillance and constant, subtle manipulation—is unethical, cruel, dangerous, and inhumane. Dangerous?

Not only is your worldview distorted, but you have less awareness of other people’s worldviews. The version of the world you are seeing is invisible to the people who misunderstand you, and vice versa.

• Your understanding of others has been disrupted because you don’t know what they’ve experienced in their feeds, while the reverse is also true; the empathy others might offer you is challenged because you can’t know the context in which you’ll be understood.
• You’re probably becoming more of an asshole, but you’re also probably sadder; another pair of BUMMER disruptions that are mirror images. Your ability to know the world, to know truth, has been degraded, while the world’s ability to know you has been corrupted. Politics has become unreal and terrifying, while economics has become unreal and unsustainable: two sides of the same coin.

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now: