Walking through a bar recently, a friend and I passed the ‘gaming’ section. An area filled with bright, noisy, colourful gambling machines. ‘Pokies’ is the deceptively cute and harmless colloquial term.
On observing several rather weary looking individuals, each pumping coin after coin into these machines, my friend shook his head. In that way that communicates sadness and disbelief that people could be so easily manipulated into habitually engaging in a no-win scenario.
He then proceeded to refresh his Instagram feed for the fifth time that hour.
I don’t blame my friend, or the people at the pokies, for their actions. We are all (myself included), subject to systems, platforms, networks and machines deliberately engineered to manipulate us via our reward systems. Whether it’s a dopamine hit from hearing some coins drop, or seeing the content you posted get another round of ‘hearts’, ‘likes’ or ‘claps’. The lights, the sounds, the subtle delays, are all designed with one objective in mind. To addict us.
I’m not in any way minimising the horrible and destructive impact gambling has on the lives of so many people by comparing it to social media addiction. I merely mean to point out the similarities with regards to the mechanisms of manipulation.
The real-time loss from gambling is primarily financial. The real-time loss from social media is time and attention.
The loss from social media is also insidious. Gradual. It’s the loss of sovereignty over your data. The loss of your ability to resist the pull of advertising as you provide more and more information on how you can be manipulated. It’s the change in your behaviour because of the reaction it will receive from your ’network’.
Giving your attention to any system hell-bent on keeping it is playing with fire.