How Your Brain Is Getting Hacked

I thought these were worth sharing.  I've scaled down my social media time.  I'm planning to give it up altogether, just use it for messaging people.

Please watch if, like me, what's happening with this stuff worries you.

How Your Brain Is Getting Hacked

How your phone is controlling your life

  • There's a book called "Selfie" by Will Storr, which is all about "how people became so self-obsessed, and what it's doing to us." It covers a lot of history, and I'm personally finding it fascinating. It makes me feel sorry for anyone who is caught up in the need to conform to social pressures, and has already provided a reality check on some of my own attitudes. I'm recommending it because it might help others.

  • I do sell that line at my local rehab and it works, very well. I have seen lives transformed when they start to fuel their bodies and minds with real food, fresh air, exercise and interesting productive activities that spark joy and excitement in them. 

    When they start treating themselves well and stop putting diesel in a petrol engine, they reconnect with a joy to live rather than destruct. Many of them become mentors for others who are in a similar situation to what they were in. They enter education and the work force, often for the first time in their lives. They begin to build self respect and self worth. They get great satisfaction from helping others. They become the loving, kind, generous and creative people they were, before addiction took hold of them. 

    I teach them how to prepare raw wholesome meals from fruit and vegetables, with no cooking involved at all. I teach them how to juice and where to go to join allotments or community garden projects so they can get all the food they could ever need for no exchange of money. They give their time, working as part of a community group, getting exercise and fresh air, learning how to work effectively with other people, and in return, they get all the fresh, wholesome, tasty, organic food they want. They never have to step inside a supermarket again. And none of them are addicted to their phones although they do have phones and they use them. We have several WhatsApp groups which we get a tremendous amount of encouragement and support from. And these are the people who used to post selfies etc, they know all the tricks with the filters, I’ve learned much about selfies from them, lol, but they don’t need that anymore. They are nourishing their bodies with the nutrients the body needs to be happy, healthy and with all the energy they need. They’ve got friends, a community, a purpose, they’re rebuilding their lives. Some of them are using Facebook to make money. They advertise their skills on Facebook for their own benefit. One guy has now got a very nice little gardening business himself, all done through Facebook. He doesn’t earn thousands but he’s happy with what he’s got and in his free time, he helps at the community project. Another guy in a similar situation does want to earn thousands, so he’s taking his business to a different level. We were on the same course together a week ago on Saturday. He’s way ahead of the game than me. 

    I’ve seen many lives transform when they address the cause of their addictions, when they start putting real nutrition into their bodies, when they get involved in growing the food they eat, they begin to learn how to work in a group, they learn the power of giving through our mentorship program, they learn new skills, their skin clears up, their health conditions start to get better, they start looking for jobs, their self esteem increases, they become valued members of not only the community, their families and friends but the wider community at large. One guy has gone on to study criminology. They are taking back their lives because they are fuelling their bodies with the nutrients which are crucial for it to be happy and healthy, alive and alert. They love snapchat and they get me on it all the time, showing how weird I am! Lol! But it’s all in good humour and it’s enjoyable. I never got into all that but I enjoy seeing some of their snap chats. 

  • I don’t want my phone to go away. I wouldn’t be able to talk to you now if I didn’t have a phone. But I have dealt with my addiction habit so I can use my phone to my benefit. Addictions always get worse if it is not dealt with, always, that’s the nature of addiction. 

  • I suppose there was always going to be a downside with such a powerful invention as the smartphone. Of course the potential was always there for it to be misused. There was already trolling and hacking and viruses. I think Big Brother will continue to rear his unwelcome head too in the next few years too and never mind this recent Facebook scandal, which I only hope will make everyone a bit wiser. No one likes to think they are a fool - we hope. 

    AndAnd , it can be addictive. Kids threatening suicide if they are parted from it in one experiment I read about.

    We might learn to use it as a powerful tool of knowledge and comninication, or it will keep on using us. Or the big interests of this wicked world will. We will see.

    I read a science fiction story in the 80's that predicted a future in which everyone would have a computer in their pocket just like this. I have travelled in time to see this actually happen and watched it develop, that has been exciting. But.....it is not exactly a Utopia we live in, is it.........

  • People die on the roads daily due to their addiction to their phones and productivity time at work  is dramatically effected by people’s addictions to phones. But evidence has proved that forcing people to abstain from their addictions doesn’t solve their problem. If a person is addicted to their phones, alcohol, drugs, processed food, sugar etc then they have to deal with the cause of their addiction and they don’t do that by simply abstaining from their choice of addiction. They have to deal with the cause and then they will be free of it and they won’t need somebody to ban them from using it to excess, they will simply use it or not, in a way that is not destructive.

    Addiction is the problem, not the phone or the food or the sugar or whatever it is they’re addicted to. Deal with the cause of their addiction and they will be free of it. 

  • If he had been a user of social media and he had found that it had damaged his life, I might have been more inclined to listen. But he said he has never ever even been on Facebook so he is talking about something he has no experience of. 

    The guy who wrote the book about not complaining, had had a lifetime of complaining and he could see the damage it was doing to his life. He has and continues to help millions of others find freedom and happiness in their lives by helping them to understand what a complaint is, the difference between a complaint and speaking up against bad service etc and how to achieve a level of happiness in their lives that they previously did not even know existed.

    Facebook opened up my life in a way that only it could. I have friends that I most likely would never have met had it not been for Facebook as well as finding out about so many other things that I would never have found out about had I not been on Facebook. It has improved my life in so many ways and I know it has done the same for others. I know autistic people who could not sustain working in an ordinary working environment and because of Facebook they are now working for themselves. They don’t earn huge incomes but that wasn’t their focus, but they earn enough to meet their needs and they couldn’t be happier. I know so many people who’s lives have been enriched by Facebook and I don’t know a single person who’s life has been damaged by it. I know people get addicted but that’s not the fault of Facebook, that’s because they refuse to address their addictive tendencies. 

  • I’m not sure that anyone is saying this doesn’t exist (although I haven’t read all the comments yet, so I can’t be sure), and all of us who have commented, have clearly took notice of what you have said, which is eveidenced by our comments.

    This does exist, of that there is no doubt but by giving energy to it, we give it power, and that’s what they want. They often put these types of videos out to get you to give your active attention to it because it’s your attention that gives it power. Without your attention, it has no power. That’s why they spend billions of pounds to find out how to get your attention, how to get you addicted, whether that’s in a positive way (engaging) or negative way (actively avoiding thereby still giving it attention). They don’t care which way you go, that’s why they start the ‘conspiracy theories’ etc ~ all attention is good attention to them. 

    Facebook or any other social media has no power over anybody. If we get addicted, it’s because the addiction is in us and facebook is simply the current focus of our addiction. I closed Facebook down when I went into burnout over a year ago and apart from for business purposes, I currently have no desire to go back on there. Not because I didn’t enjoy it or that I don’t miss my friends and family who are on there, but because I’m simply not ready yet to be fully out there in the world again. When I’m out of this burnout completely, I will have to see whether I go back on it or not, I suspect I will, because although I was very late to get on there and I was very reluctant, I enjoyed it immensely and I got so much out of it, I made several new friends I would never have otherwise met and of course, it’s a great way to learn more about life and people as well as many other things.

    I’ve found that if I keep my focus in life on all the good things in life that I want to do, on all the good and wonderful things in the world and all the wonderful, kind and beautiful people, then I’m not effected by the continued efforts of the few who are out to control us through television, movies, advertising, processed food, fast food, sugar, pharmaceuticals, chemicals in deodorants and shampoos etc. All of that is happening, they even tell us now what they’re doing because even that gets them more power. 

    I suppose if you’re just finding out about this stuff, I can understand your enthusiasm for sharing this information, one of my ex’s is still sharing this information. He gets really good info (I have no idea how! Lol) but he does and I think it can be useful (for some people) to be aware of it but then let it go. It can only harm you if you let it and you let it by giving even an inch of your attention to it. But if you are into all this, and haven’t already listened to it,  ‘info wars’, is a YouTube news station that has tons of info like this. I used to watch it occasionally until I had enough knowledge to know that this stuff is happening. Then I could accept it and get on with my own life. 

    My current focus is to learn to climb one of those big tall palm trees in Bali! When I get back there I’m going to get one of the locals to teach me. That’s what I’m currently excited about. That and getting back out on my bicycle over here so I make the most of my time here while I’m currently here. My dad got it out the garage for me, washed it, oiled it and pumped up my tyres, so it won’t be long before I’m out on my bike which always fills me with so much joy Blush

  • Okay.... I'm just leaving this here.  There isn't much point in continuing with an argument if people are still going to take no notice of what you're saying and pretend none of this exists - or even just simply hit the 'dislike' arrow because they don't agree or don't like the idea (an easy get-out, spawned by social media no less!).  Humans, by and large, are creatures of habit and routine - NDs especially, though I thought they tended to think more outside of the box - and will usually end up believing what they want to believe, or what it suits them best to believe... for peace of mind, vested interest, narrow vision, prejudice, ignorance or any other reason. 

    Hopefully, even if I haven't sown a seed of doubt in anyone's mind, I've at least thrown up an alert so that people can keep a closer eye on these things in the future.

  • '63% of secondary school pupils in the UK wouldn't mind if social media didn't exist.  56% describe themselves as being on the edge of addiction to social media.  71% say they've been on temporary digital detoxes to escape it.'

    Source: Digital Awareness UK/The Guardian

  • That's pie-in-the-sky thinking with respect, BlueRay (no pun intended).  So, people stop eating processed food and eat proper food, and suddenly they no longer have a need for social media, TV, gaming, drugs...  Try selling that line down at your local rehab!

    I agree with you that it's a killer addiction.  I detest the stuff.  But it's cheap (or so people think, because it isn't really), and usually quick to prepare - that's the pull of it.  It's full of fat, sugar, colourings and addictive chemicals like monosodium glutamate... all sorts of nasties.  But stopping using it isn't going to have the slightest impact on people's needs for social validation, acceptance, recognition, etc. - such as social media brings to many.  It's a very human need that these devices tap into, which is why it's so addictive.  Witness the 'selfie' phenomenon social media has spawned.  Some people simply fill their social media pages with hundreds of photographs of themselves.  Why, when all of their friends know what they look like?  What are they trying to prove?  Maybe it's pure vanity.  Maybe it's the whole 'Hey, I can be famous, too' thing.  Or maybe they're trying to present themselves in the best light, to give the constant (often false) impression that their lives are so great - so much better, say than anyone else's.  So, it's ego-reinforcement.  It's the construction of a fantasy.  It's whatever it is for them.  The designers at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al knew all of this very well - as they all admit.  It's a bit rich, really, to hear an ex-Facebook chairman, who's grown fabulously wealthy from Facebook, come out and say that he regrets so much of the impact social media has had - but at least he's saying it.  The Facebook business model is predicated on advertising, as we've established.  And what's advertising and marketing all about?  Convincing us to buy things that we may not actually need, but doing it in such a way so that we come to believe that without these things our lives will be empty and meaningless.  It's tapping into human psychological vulnerability again.  It can't really fail.

    There are none so blind as those who refuse to see, as the old saying goes...

    Here... have a look at these, if you've a mind...

    Why we should rethink our relationship with the smartphone

    What you are missing while being a digital zombie...

    "All of us are jacked into the system.  All of our minds can be hijacked.  Our choices are not as free as we think they are."

    Tristan Harris - former designer of Google's advertising metrics, turned vocal critic of the tech industry.

  • Also, it's not about paranoia or conspiracy theories.  The guys in these videos - in fact, some of the most outspoken critics - are the very same people who helped to develop these technologies.  Why bite the hand that feeds you?  And it's more than a little disingenuous to say that because it doesn't affect you too much, then it isn't a problem.  It's almost tantamount to saying that because global warming doesn't seem to be affecting you, it probably doesn't exist.

    I don't know how old you are, MattBucks, but I'd say that you're either young enough to have been conditioned with these devices since schooldays, so don't have a context to understand life without them because they're all you've ever known (thus making my arguments a fogeyish, generational thing)... or you're much older, so you never had them when growing up and have come to them in later life, and are able to control your usage because you do have that context, and it's merely a bit of a novelty for you as well as being a tool.  You're not addicted to them because you haven't been conditioned to them, as young people are now.  Simply because it's not an issue for you personally doesn't mean that it's not an issue for many thousands or millions of others.  Some people can take or leave a drink.  Some people drink regularly, but within healthy limits.  Some people are alcoholics.

    With respect again - jazz, rock 'n' roll, telly... all of those things are nowhere in the same league as these devices in terms of the changes they've wrought.  People listened to their music or watched their TVs in the evenings and at the weekends after work.  Now... those things are right there, in hand, 24/7 - and social media is adding to the demand for their usage.  Back before smartphones, you didn't spend your working day constantly switching on your music, constantly turning your TV channel over, etc - because these things were at home, not there in front of you!

    Anyway... let's see who's right, shall we. Time will tell.

  • You really don't get it, do you.  It's not just another addiction.  It will not go away.  And, as upcoming generations are born into its use, it will get worse.

  • Social media isn’t the most harmful addiction that people are engaged in.

    But it's getting that way, because more and more people are being conditioned into it - from schooldays onwards.  And it's affecting far, far more people that alcohol or drug addiction.  Huge swathes of the population.  You need to understand - it's that exploiting the weakness in human psychology: the need to be noticed, the need for acceptance, etc.  Kids are especially vulnerable because they can be bullied for being up with it in the first place... and also for not being up with it.  Their friends, by and large, spend large parts of their day on social media: Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  My friend's son at work is on and on at her for a phone, and he's just 13.  All of his friends have got them and interact on them, and he's feeling left out.  She doesn't want him to have a phone at his age, and I don't blame her - because she can see what it's doing to his friends, and how it's affecting them.  But she's also worried that if she doesn't get him one, he'll be left out - and could then be bullied.

    I think it's generally about opening your eyes to the changes it's clearly wrought in society and looking at the implications.  Business leaders, educators, academics, psychiatrists... they're all recognising the problems.  Nomophobia is now a recognised psychological condition - extreme anxiety caused by the loss of one's phone, or accidentally leaving it at home, or of the battery running out.  Continuous partial attention has already been mentioned, and is well understood as an ongoing phenomenon.  I'm not talking about people like yourself, maybe, for whom it's a great little thing and a bit of fun, and brings a positive addition to your life.  I'm talking about the people who simply can't live without them.

  • But, again, you don't take your TV to work (though you can now, with iPlayers).  You don't stop what you're doing every so often and tune in to see what's on.  It's a whole different mechanism.  TV programmes are scheduled, and most of the decent ones are on during evenings and weekends, when people are off work.  'Likes' notifications aren't scheduled.  They come at random throughout the day.  As do messages.  You're in a staff meeting at work - depending, again, on where you work.  Or at an evening class.  Or at the cinema or theatre.  Or in any other kind of public meeting where you are meant to be focusing on something.  What's the first thing that gets said?  'Please turn your phones off or switch them to silent.'  Yet still phones go off.  At the cinema, people are still checking their phones when the film is on - and some can get quite uptight if you tell them to please stop.

    Yes, sack people.  Again, I don't know about where you work, but where I work it's an epidemic.  They'd have to sack a lot of people.  Which is why they're taking a different approach and looking to ban personal phone use in working hours.  What's wrong with lunch breaks or coffee breaks?  Why do people have to continually stop working during the day because their phone has buzzed to notify them of likes, messages, or whatever?  But don't take my word for it.  Have a search around.  Phone use at work is having a big impact on productivity in many sectors.  Not only that, but if you're at a task and are constantly interrupted, your concentration level is bound to be affected.  If you're studying something, say, and you break off every few minutes, you're constantly breaking concentration.  This can have a devastating effect on information retention (is it any wonder that attention spans have now dropped to the level of soundbites, and that people aren't reading so much any more?)  There's also the constant expectation, too, of something - a buzz, a chime -  so people are in a heightened state of a kind of anxiety as they wait for it.  When you're out driving - if you drive - or even if you're out walking near a road, take note of the number of other drivers who are distracted by phones.  You can usually tell.  They're looking at their lap, or their eyes are somehow diverted from the road.  Mobile phone use accidents are on the rise.  Police say it's more dangerous that drink-driving.  BUT PEOPLE STILL DO IT!  Quite often, they're the same people who wouldn't dream of drinking and driving.  We had an accident up at the High Street where I live a couple of months back.  A woman driving along mounted the pavement and went into a crash bollard.  She was using her phone!  She later admitted it.  She had no choice because it was recorded on her phone record.  Fortunately for her, no one was hurt.  But she lost her licence - and her car - and had to pay damages.  A couple of years back, as was in the national news, a carload of people were killed on the M2 when an artic ploughed into the back of them.  The driver was watching a film - on his phone!

    Honestly... it doesn't take a lot of figuring out, the impact this is all having. 

  • Bit like another guy telling people not to complain, eh? Wink  Sells a lot of books!  Actually, I'm glad this guy is selling books.  He's getting the word out to people who just want to pretend nothing is happening and it'll all be nice and fine, and life will go on as normal, and Santa Claus will still come, etc...  At least this guy doesn't have any vested interests - not like the guys developing the stuff.  Mark Zuckerberg's done very well, thank you, out of manipulating us under the guise of giving us a wonderful product.

    I think he can see the effect it's had.  And when the people who helped to create the monster are themselves starting to worry about it, it must suggest something.

    I don't follow your logic.  There are plenty of things that we can observe and probably figure out that life would be better without it, even though we've never had it.  Neurotypicality, maybe?  Diabetes?  Cancer?

  • With respect, it's a bigger and more far-reaching change than any of those other things. Let's wait and see how innocuous or otherwise it will prove to be.  But already the impact on businesses and educational establishments has been big enough to raise some very serious and valid concerns. 

  • It’s just another addiction. Twenty years ago you didn’t see people on the streets, looking like statues, after they’ve smoked some spice, a new street drug. 

    The focus of addictions come and go. Just look how quickly trends move.  But weening someone off one addiction without addressing the cause of the addiction will only lead to that person finding another focus for their addiction. It’s not uncommon, for example, for a drug addict to be weened off his drug of choice, to find himself now addicted to alcohol.

    Social media is just the latest ‘thing’ for people to hang their addictions on. But food has to be the biggest one. It is the biggest cause of the majority of premature deaths in the developed countries due to illness and it has been shown, that when people deal with this addiction, all their others disappear. 

  • People have got brains. But just look around you at phone usage. 20 years ago, you might see one or two people with a device in public.  Now it's the norm. Addiction is a big part of it. And I don't think it's very far removed from the realms of fantasy to see the wider implications with things like social control. Consider, too, the current Cambridge Analytica case. I found Facebook a useful tool at first for getting in touch with people and sharing information.  But I've become more aware of the true value of this for me now, and it doesn't add up to much.  Like all addictions,  it isn't easy going cold turkey.  But I have today deactivated my FB account. Already,  I feel like I' m claiming some of my life back. 

  • People will generally only quit their addiction when it is effecting their life in a way they don’t want anymore. Or as the saying goes, when they hit their rock bottom. Forcing people to quit their addictions is rarely effective long term.

    The real killer addiction in developed countries is the addiction to processed food. When people quit that addiction and start feeding themselves with real food, they find that many of their other addictions, such as social media, television, gaming, etc just leave them.

  • Cell phones, the Internet and so on are wonderful modern developments that opens up all kinds of avenues to us, however, what I find a bit worrying is the addictive aspect of such devices and the consequent reliance on them. It's perfectly OK to carry and use such devices in an appropriate way but I find many people seem too readily to turn to using them at the cost of social interaction at the 'human' level. That is to say, retreating into a personal world that is mediated by a computer screen, something which seems rather unnatural and undesirable if taken to extremes. Such behaviour, if it becomes too addictive, can only lead to a lack of social skills since real people can become regarded an merely 'objects' and consequently ignored.