First they controlled the land, then money, then society,
then ideology, now what? Which aspect remain to be controlled? In primitive
society people organized in tribes, clan and started to enforce the land
controls. They fought over it, won it and cherished it. Then these clans
evolved over time and became small nations.
Nations had more organized setups scientific developments,
lots of backdoor power broking, organized large armies and religious patronage.
Kings were believed to be descendants of God. Thus they held the divine power
and when this divine power was challenged they had armies at their disposal.
Kings controlled the state at macro level and developed the concept of Society for
the micro level control, which was basically implemented and taken care by
village chiefs. For example, everyone was supposed to marry in their own
clan/caste, but if someone tried to defy this rule then priest will not perform
the rituals of the marriage, washer man will not wash their clothes and no one
will buy produce from his fields. This micro level control gave rise to social
control.
Scientific advancements and mass production technologies
created wealth for the individuals and the quantum was so great that even the
treasury of the Nation had to borrow sometimes at the interest rates. However,
this phenomenon is still vogue as governments issues T-bill and Gov. bonds.
During initial phases of industrial revolution such wealthy individuals were
few and were indeed emerged from nobles and aristocrats. They wanted the piece
of cake of power in exchange for their wealth.
After sometimes time when wealth grew more and more people joined the
club of wealthy individuals along with the impact of renaissance; democracy
emerged. This also loosed the social control as in the entrepreneurial setup,
money and value of work matters most rather than weather you married in your
clan or in different clan. With this control of ideology begun. The
fierce battle of ideology was fought in the “Cold War”. Whole world was on
the verge to divided either on Capitalist Side or on Communist Side.
But what next? Does this stop here? This question would have
been asked in every phase and both Yes and No would have been appeared as valid
answers. But in today’s era of extreme Data Analytics and Social Media, a new
form of control is about to emerge and this time it would be psychological
control. Luster of wealth creates a byproduct of relevance, attention and recognition.
Everybody desperately wants all of these byproducts but not all can have
because there is a precondition to it and that is humongous bank balance. So
people try to satisfy their need on social media by posting something and
checking whether they are getting appreciation or not? Can their next idea
become viral? and they will become instantly famous and acquire a tag of social
media influencer and what not. Capitalist innovators are pretty blessed mind
they see opportunity in everything. Thus, we have platform such as Facebook, YouTube
and TikTok. Among all I fear the most is TikTok. It a best tool to control the
masses by their psychology. People make videos on the platform and post it. They
get watched, liked and followed, this translates into the monetary benefits for
the creator. This element of monetary benefit actually gives the false sense of
justification to content creator (hereinafter CC) that their time is well utilized
and they are doing something of value. Another aspect is that CC will produce
only such content that will sell better and allow them to earn fatter rewards.
This puts them to the mercy of “watching” population. They may be watching the
content due to the artistic value of the content or some other aspect such as
the beauty of CC. Worst part of all this that latter is more prominent than
former so, one who is beautiful and glamorous have more chance to earn more
rather than others. This platform has successfully linked you rewards to your
physical feature rather than your artistic attributes. For winners it’s good but
for looser it hurts and plays with their mind and this give the psychological control of users to the TikTok. We all know in the world of recognition, relevance and
attention winners are few and looser are more. In the light of my analysis I am
assured that such platform must be banned and objective control of Social Media
is necessary, otherwise politician and business men and women will use these
platforms to psychologically confine you to be used at their wish and draw most
benefit out of you.
“If something is free, then you are the product.”
But who am I? I am no psychologist or Social Media Analyst.
Thus to Substantiate this I would like to present one excerpt of motivation
theory propounded by Abramam Maslow (Need hierarchy Theory) and Aldefer’s (Hierarchy
of Motivational Needs). When one individual fails to satisfy the higher order
need he/she subjected to frustration-regression (Aldefer) and turns to satisfy
the lower order needs. This translates into that when one is not able to
achieve self-esteem, he/she turn to the more socialization. This is where
Social Networks come to the picture. They exploit such situation and make sure that one remains in the situation for ever.
Tec giants are using these tec to control the masses by using psychology. If masses recognised their value and started to act responsibly then it is the masses who will control everything rather than be controlled.
