Life in Our Times: Too Much (Biased) Information!
In this day and age of the Internet and instant communication, you’d think it would be easy to learn about something. After all, you can search for most things on your favorite search engine and come up with millions of results, right?
But life is seldom as it seems.
Even with all these potential "hits," finding what we're actually looking for can be extremely difficult.
The more I sit back and observe my results when searching for something specific, the more I come to realize that two things are often at play... and they tend to interact with each other:
(1) A distinct "favor" is given to search results relating to SELLING me something to do with whatever I am looking for and (2) very clearly, my results are biased towards what the search engine wants me to see, rather than what I am actually looking for... and those two definitely play off each other!
To the true anarchists among you, that ay sound like a "well... DUH" statement, but the vast majority of the world seems blissfully unaware of just how much — and how subtly — our lives are informed by seemingly "innocent" parts of our daily lives.
It's not "coincidental" that someone in a TV program we watch is drinking from a Starbucks mug. Or that the hero in some movie is eating at a well-known chain of restaurants.
So why am I even writing about this? I guess because sometimes I just get supremely tired of being sold to at every turn.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not anti consumption nor an apologist for a non-material lifestyle. I'm all for free market economies and all that good stuff.
The thing that does bug me a bit is this idea that my "results" — be it online, or in life — are so strongly guided by whatever/whomever can afford to buy advertising and "product placement," rather than a broader spectrum of possibilities.
Stated a little differently: How can we find new stuff, when the "famous stuff" is relentlessly being pushed in our faces, all the time?
Just gets to be "a bit much," sometimes...
Thanks for reading, and have a great week ahead!
How about YOU? Ever notice how much of the "information" we are exposed to is more like a form of "advertising?" Do you find it annoying? Or do you not really pay attention, and just pass on by? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20220605 23:08 PDT
x431
Yes--and let's talk about the elephant in the room. It is not just commodities that are being peddled, but ideologies. I would gladly watch all the propagandists sip from a Starbuck's mug or nibble at a Swanson dinner if they were not able to buy product placement space to push their ideology.