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It's disturbing how we as a society are okay with ad companies weaponsing psychology

So many people that take psychology courses end up working in the advertisement industry because that’s where the jobs are if you have a psychology degree. Very few people sit back and think about the implications of the scientific study of the mind being used by companies to distort peoples perceptions and make them buy things.

They are literally trying to control our minds. It’s not a conspiracy theory this is out in the open public information. If some companies decided to they can make you depressed to sell more things to you and you wouldn’t even know it.

Imagine the pick a teenage boy. This boy is a bit shy and insecure. Now, psychology was originally intended to help people. Under the capitalist model it doesn’t. Now this teenage boy instead of being recommended stuff to help them will instead be recommended the likes of Andrew Tate and so on. This person won’t even know what hit them and won’t even understand the turn of events that will lead to those videos being recommended. But they are recommended to him. Suddenly his change in behaviour pushes people away and he falls deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole.

They get more depressed. More lonely so they start buying shit like AI girlfriends but they aren’t real. They get recommended more hateful content as well. They will sprial deeper into depression. This person will likely seek help at this point. Perhaps they’ll recommend putting effort into real world connections so they download something like tinder. But all these apps are designed to make you pay in order to succeed so he pays to get special access. Now the ad companies know they’ll loose money if this now grown man becomes confident so they start recommending content that’ll make them more anxious and depressed about the experience. They give up and retreat further into depression. The whole time the person who is being targeted, their family, their therapist and their loved ones will never be able to put the dots together. They’ll wonder what went wrong not knowing that their personality was already decided for them by ad companies years ago.

So like that they add companies weaponising human psychology can target a teenage boy and basically plan out the next ten years of their life. Think about how dystopian the weaponisation of psychology is when a family member of yours goes down the alt right pipeline after “suddenly” being recommended such videos.

haui_lemmy ,

Welcome to the club. I‘m 36 now and have seen this for the past 10+ years while its also speeding up. If I tell people they look at me with empty eyes.

Solution would be to create a movement but most people are too busy. Lmk if you want to start something.

possiblylinux127 ,

I don’t like your use of the word “capitalist”. This feels more like a communist or liberal recruitment speech. (No offense or hostility intended)

I think we should focus people and the hard work they do

rimu ,
@rimu@piefed.social avatar

This isn't a recent thing, it's been going on since the beginning of psychology in the early 20th century. The doco 'The century of the self' explains it all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

cosmicrookie ,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

since the beginning of psychology in the early 20th century

TIL tha psychology is not as old as I thought it was

Anticorp ,

We as a society aren’t okay with it. There’s tons of pushback against it. But the corporations own the politicians that make the laws. We need to revoke the “corporations are people” ruling to make any progress on this and many other fronts.

nicky7 ,

Fully agree. I would also hope to see a complete ban on advertising to children, and to get rid of obnoxious billboards.

Anticorp ,

One thing I love about where I live is that billboards are illegal. Every time I go somewhere that has a lot of billboards I’m overwhelmed with how intrusive they are.

blind3rdeye ,

Corporations are also practiced at using advertising campaigns to sway the general public against policies that would weaken the company’s power.

So to change this, some brave politicians would need to act not only against the financial interest of themselves and their political party, but also possibly against a large chunk of the general public pushing back against the changes (most likely led by ‘mainstream media’). Politicians willing to do this kind of thing exist… but unfortunately not enough of them.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Outside of products that are themselves addicting, I don’t really see any actual harm coming from advertising. Yes, I fucking hate ads, but thats because they are annoying and interrupt the things I do like. The real manipulative practices I see come pretty much from the video game’s industry. Alcohol and tobacco are naturally addictive and the people who make and sell those products do rely on that for sales; but the advertising isn’t making them more addictive. Games, on the other hand, are true weapons of psychological warfare.

Many development companies have psychologists on staff specifically to come up with new, stronger ways of addicting players or causing FOMO, or otherwise manipulating a small handful of the population susceptible to such a degree, they would go into ruin spending money on useless digital shit. And it’s like every little thing in the game. Your eyes are generally watching a game you’re enjoying a lot more than a TV ad, billboard, radio advert or other form of advertisement we are constantly bombarded with.

You ever see a video or play Call of Duty and wonder why there is so much “noise” on screen? Why it rewards you for every little thing you do? Because completing goals triggers endorphins. Instead of waiting for a win or loss of an entire game, they can hook you on the good brain chemicals by giving you tons of smaller accomplishments in rapid succession. When games have rarity levels for things you can buy with real cash, things that can literally be created out of thin air if they so desired because it’s a piece of software, it’s manipulating you into thinking somehow there is some scarcity in a thing that in actuality has none.

They are so good at manipulating the player, they can get you to do things subconsciously just with a few tricks of level design. A lot of this manipulation is just the nature of the beast; but plenty AAA devs weaponize the shit out of it and it’s pretty scary that if they wanted to, they could likely “Manchurian Candidate” someone. Though I suppose there is some humor to be found in that violence itself in a game does little to make one violent IRL; but it actually would be possible to design a game that drives the right person to violence, if someone was sadistic enough to make such a game.

Kushia ,
@Kushia@lemmy.ml avatar

They always have and we don’t really get a choice in the matter. The reason why you’re noticing it increasing particularly online is because there was a time not too long ago that it didn’t have any of the bullshit and in some ways they’re still figuring it out.

_987 ,
@_987@lemmy.world avatar

brought to you by CIA

SharkEatingBreakfast ,
@SharkEatingBreakfast@sopuli.xyz avatar

Young girls have had this happening for decades. Today they’re constantly being fed fake images and cartoonishly filtered women in videos as the base standard of beauty. They’re told that their flaws are “ugly” and “embarrassing”.

But buy our makeup / skincare / acne treatment / anti-fat tea and you’ll finally be beautiful and people won’t think you’re ugly flith!!

HawlSera ,

My idea of what a woman is permanently warped and my idea of what the averqage breast size is seems stuck as “Big boobed anime lady” and my idea of big boobs is “Hyper Breasts”

Thanks Beauty Industry!

MEATPANTS ,

That’s the beautiful thing about weaponizing psychology; if you’ve done it well enough, people won’t even realize that you’ve done it

aniki ,

To me the shit is as barbaric is treating cancer with chemo-therapy. It’s going to be one of those things future generations look back on with total disgust and horror like the way we look back and people dumping their shit buckets into the street.

reddig33 ,

Everyone weaponizes psychology. Not just ad companies. Your boss, your friends, politicians, your child when they want you to buy them a new toy, the plot of a good book. People need to learn critical thinking.

Kissaki ,

Not every user is weaponization.

aniki ,

Come off it. Not everyone is trying to manipulate you into acting against your best interest. Which is precisely what advertising is.

theworstshepard ,

Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just “we both know you’re going to have to buy this anyway so please buy our version of it”

There’s a scale of harmful from that all the way up to scams, with “you don’t need this but we’re going to trick you into thinking you do” in the middle

KnightontheSun ,

Have you ever watched The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis? If not, please do so. It is free on Youtube. You’re touching on some of the elements here.

Toneswirly ,

Reminds me of Minutemen’s song Shit From an Old Notebook: “Let the products sell themselves Fuck advertising, commercial psychology Psychological methods to sell should be destroyed”

alsaaas ,
@alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Welcome to capitalism babyyyyyy

homesweethomeMrL ,

Yep. It’s why “TV” was such a “thing”. Also, Reagan.

abbadon420 ,

I recently found out that you can watch full youtube videos without ads if you only watch the… whatsitcalled…thumbnail?.. you can even enabke the sound. No adds! That feels like a loophole. There’s better solutions, but this one feels special, since it’s in the official youtube app. I can’t believe they left that in on accident though, but I’ll take it.

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