Should Facebook manipulate users?
We have come to understand how information is presented online to form an immense interactive and connected network. The presentation of information is filtered in unique ways, based on content value and predetermined algorithms. This feature of the Web can directly impact the ways in which people process and understand the information they are presented with. In turn, the Web is an extremely powerful tool that can use these underlying mechanisms to steer someone in desirable directions. As discussed in class, this is particularly prominent to Web 2.0 site designs.
Jaron Lanier recognizes this influence when reviewing the effects of Facebook newsfeeds on user’s happiness. In a study conducted at Cornell, researches determined that “emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness”. This finding sheds light on how powerful networking sites, like Facebook, can be on our mental state. Unfortunately, researchers are extremely limited with their studies because of ethical issues surrounding privacy and technology. This is an extremely early and limited study, but does demonstrate how social network proprietors can engineer emotions to a degree. Even with our limited research on the matter, it is important to recognize how much influence the internet has. Without this understanding, users are vulnerable to manipulation of emotions and mental wellbeing.
So, what do we do with this information? Are websites entitled to this much control over our subconscious? Jaron Lanier argues that further research is necessary for understanding just how extreme the influence is. He even goes as far as encouraging us to “choose to live in a society of true hearts, not calculated ones”. It seems that our understanding of these effects has just begun, and there is a tremendous amount of findings that have yet to be discovered. Above all, it is important to be educated consumers of the internet as we see the role it can play in shaping our judgments.