DTA & THE CHAOSE MACHINE, Reading Reflection #4x

DTA: On page 76, the author states that 3 in 4 TV-owning households have smart TVs. How do you typically watch content, and how does the device (mobile vs. TV) affect your perception of ads?

I typically watch long-form content, such as movies or YouTube videos, on my computer. I don't watch TV, so I don't get ads from streaming services or from cable. Most ads come from YouTube or while scrolling through Instagram. If they are from YouTube, I don't pay much attention to them because, more often than not, when you research the products being marketed, the reviews are terrible, and the product is often unreliable. Ads from Instagram are far more curated to me because of the algorithm, so I frequently find myself stopping and entertaining the ad, even clicking on the account and going through the website. I usually notice that if it is a physical product to be purchased, ads on social media, such as Instagram will not have a price anywhere in sight, but on something like TikTok, where the app attempts to get you to go to the "TikTok shop," the price will be put right in front of you because it's so low it's irresistible.

Moving on to The Chaos Machine chapter 4

Understandably, moral outrage is a human response. If it were 17 something and there was no internet for people to be canceled, but there were plenty of rotten tomatoes to be thrown by the public because somebody needed to learn a lesson. Now, social media puts people on a pedestal for their wrongdoings or maybe even minor mistakes. A pedestal to be reprimanded.

Recognizing that moral outrage is an evolutionary trait built into human DNA as a survival mechanism provides insight into why cancel culture exists and is so prevalent on social media. It amplifies human nature to stand beside those whose beliefs align with your own and stand against those who oppose them. Social media is not revealing anything new about humans, it is just turning common reactions to social situations into a grand show.

I created the piece above to illustrate how, as a society, we have elevated social media to a position of dominance, which in turn has profoundly impacted our lives and altered the way we interact with one another. It has changed how we converse and what we believe. Authenticity feels more complex and harder to come by, and everyone always seems to be at their highest emotional state. It is so easy to get wrapped up in online communities that one day you may find yourself fighting in a comment section or calling someone out - attempting to put them on that very pedestal, and bring other people in to share in the chaos - just because you disagree with that person over quite literally anything or you feel that they are wrong. Wrong about what? Once again, it could be as simple as putting milk in the bowl before the cereal. Don't get me wrong, that's a bit bizarre, but all of a sudden, people are saying aggressively mean comments about a person's integrity because of the order they make a bowl of cereal.