->

Monday Morning Greetings 2024 #51 – The Battle for Our Souls

December 16th, 2024

The Battle for Our Souls[1]

 

The success of yoga depends on our ability to focus our attention on a particular object. Never in history has there been so much competition for that attention. Perhaps the biggest competitor for our attention, and thus our spiritual life, is social media. Here’s a short analysis as to why.[2]

 

A successful business markets a product. How then did Big Tech become one of the most successful commercial enterprises in history overnight if it’s available for free? The answer is simple: we are the product. Big Tech markets us to advertisers. We are a valuable commodity because advertisers seek certainty in sales, and the extraordinary amount of data Big Tech collects on us ensures them that certainty. Whoever learns the science of utilizing the vast data of our preferences and proclivities will be, without doubt, successful in sales. Such predictability is obviously the advertiser’s and businessman’s dream.

 

I think we all already know this to some extent. What I don’t think we know is the extent to which they are able to control us. Simply put, we are dealing with behavior-changing geniuses. They have perfected the science of recording the gradual and imperceptible changes of what we think, what we do, and how to market things not to help us but to fill their pockets. Perhaps even more frightening is that as they collect more and more data over time, their prediction models on each of us becomes increasingly refined, enabling them to not only control us for commercial purposes but also to inculcate their own materialistic values.

 

There are obvious ramifications and a basic conflict in all this for those with a spiritual goal. On one side we stand, trying to mold our attention towards a culture of selflessness and devotion, and on the other side stands a business model geared to get as much of our attention as possible for the purpose of inflating our ego and greed. Just see the juxtaposition. While the whole purpose of yoga is to quell the frivolous fluctuations of the mind, the purpose behind social media is to exponentially increase them. It is a battle for our souls. May Lord Krishna save us.

 

“There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.”—Edward Tufte

 

[1] This is a new edit of a Monday Morning Greetings originally published December 27, 2021.

[2] Much of my analysis comes from the documentary The Social Dilemma.

 

Comments are closed.