the techno-social environment
It’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters
the techno-social environment
Any social media activity is a request to unknown others for affirmation. It flips personal conversations into public exhibitions.
Andrey Mir • The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution
... See moreAlthough influencers are still closely associated with dance videos, e-commerce, and marketing, their role in shaping public opinion- especially around politics-is outsized. Influencers can harness attention, radiate trust, evoke emotion, and direct energy—all to great effect. They capitalize on atmospheric vibes and intuitions, giving people the
... See moreInfluencers are opinion leaders with the power to influence what people believe or buy and the capacity to shape sentiment and norms within their niche. They innately understand how to connect with others in a digital age, developing intimate trusted relationships with their followers, yet are also capable of achieving reach commensurate with mass
the web as we knew it is shoved off the page, a decades-old online civilization of websites reduced to training data for slick chatbots.
John Herrman • Will Google’s AI Plans Destroy the Media?
Revenge of the Followers
nytimes.com
You might also be aware that all this is delivered by means of “persuasive design”—an umbrella term for an armory of psychological techniques borrowed directly from the designers of casino slot machines, for the express purpose of encouraging compulsive behavior. One example among hundreds is the ubiquitous drag-down-to-refresh gesture, which keeps... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
When looking at the Mirror World, it can seem obvious that millions of people have given themselves over to fantasy, to make-believe, to playacting. The trickier thing, the uncanny thing, really, is that’s what they see when they look at us. They say we live in a “clown world,” are stuck in “the matrix” of “groupthink,” are suffering from a form of
... See moreNaomi Klein • Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
- Pre-modern information environments were locally shared common worlds mediated chiefly by our embodied experience.
- Modernity offered instead a de-situated public sphere built on a shared institutional and expert knowledge mediated by print and mass media.
- What we are now living through is the collapse of the modern arrangement and the emergence of
L. M. Sacasas • From Common Sense to Bespoke Realities
... See moreThe influencer's primary job is to grow an audience, a crowd of followers who will serve as eyeballs on the content as well as secondary distribution machine. Reach significantly determines to what extent the influencer makes money or accrues power, so the temptation to pepper content with the kind of bait that the algorithms will boost to a niche