If you go through Facebook over time you see though its quite a complex machine having gone through a number of revisions to layout changes, functionality and of course privacy policy changes.I did a quick dump of my current facebook layout and as you can see it has alot going on in it.
Of the data shown only 1 peice of information is human intervention (the Arsenal post relating to a liked page, This compares to 8+ peice of information that Facebook have kindly presented so that we can continue to offer a quality service .....etc etc yawn yawn yawn. But from human conscious perspective that a fairly pretty high percentage of information that i have involuntarily gobbled up. Doesa messy fb layout clutter our mind more, does presenting information we do not want make us feel we have less control thus making us more open to external enviornment suggestion ?
Could there be an upside to manipulation For instance if If i tweaked the facebook page in the last picture by making these changes
- Replacing trending with a task bar encouraging the user to develop their own unique perspective on life rather then getting them to merely *follow* the latest trend topics
- Suggested posts which are more straight to the point, less consumerist and more positive
Presenting such positive influence could increase moods which could make me indirectly have a more positive day and even acheive more or help people more. Facebook being facebook have already been doing studies on the very effect both positive ad upside (Emotional Contagion experiment). Not suprising that a body corporate would look into such experiments as the holy grail of a capitalist company is being able to manipulate people to think in a certain why either through brand awareness, purchase decision etc.
Although the reaction to the emotional contagion experiment was quite damming as you woud expect does make you wonder how different that is to the excessively consumerist facebook profile I was orginally presented. Being greeted with a slow chant of buy whirling up in my subconscious...will lead to a buy mood (whatever that even)You have to wonder who even decides what is acceptable ?
But yeh this same person who comments on facebook tatics is the same guy with a facebook account. Ironic much. Regaining full control of the information you take in would probably lead to a decision off such mind exploitation technologies such as facebook and when facebook has a ever decreasing number of users it will find that their share price starts heading the opposite to it current direction which will force the self minded shareholder and board to begin to start worrying abot their pockets which will lead them to changing to a platform which people want.
Of course the situation above will not eventuate given the pack mentality is to use facebook. Hope you found the article thought provoking just some food for thought.
- The convention role for the company is to be lead by a CEO/Board with a very financial minded outlook (hence the quite ad revenue based fb layout). Would it be possible for a company to have its overarching aobjective to fulfill their mission in society (ie. make it better etc) or does it always come back to numbers ? Can Google or Apple be considered examples of this ? How about the UN (not a company i know) ?
- Does the disconnection between society values and company values lead to company essentially driving a world which is not exactly better. Do company values shape the values of the future society ?
- Relevant movie scene for topic
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