Propaganda Techniques 2
I would say that the other main way our minds are tweaked, is by marketing and the way our habits have changed to suit it. It could be argued that the TV was the main source of news distribution up to a few years ago, because it suits marketing purposes so well. Not just commercial marketing, mind you, political marketing is quite similar, as our ex-KGB friend demonstrates all too well. Images work. Opinions. Here an article that advises against the use of Facebook for professional purposes, but parts of the discussion veer off into another territory: how does Facebook train your mind? Similar to TV, it discourages actual discussion, and favors the soundbites, swift and short posts or reactions, and, similar to TV, is engineered to addict you to it. You train your mind in ways you don’t want to be trained! Personally, I consider this ADHD-culture one of the biggest dangers to mental health: screw parents worrying over First Person Shooters, where is the outcry over making everyone mentally incapable? I guess because it’s a subtle and invisible force, not orchestrated by a single actor, but a side-effect of processes that we do not regard as ‘bad’ yet…