In today’s world, we cannot escape the pushing of content, pushing of believed need and pushing of thought and actions. What do I mean by this. The media pushes their version of events, for example the news, 24hrs a day pushing their view of thing, polarising issues they believe are the ones we should know about. Unfortunately what that does it focus your mind on their agenda, and you can almost believe nothing else is going on in the world. Quite a few years ago I remember, there were serious storms in the Caribbean, people were losing their lives. The Island of Grenada was being destroyed, at that time there was no mention of this disaster in the news, Why do I remember? My grandad was in Grenada and we were frantically trying to find out if he was ok. Luckily he was.
Content pushing isn’t reserved for the news, we are all aware of big brands pushing their good. As mentioned in my previous article pushing conformity seems to be the in thing. The reason why we have influencers is because of the desire to ‘push’ and create the need to have something and to think something is great. Those influencers have thousands of subscribers or connections, creating little mini me’s.
Let’s go back 20 years, there was less of the pushing more informing. News advised you about what was happening, I am sure some soft pushing occurred but it wasn’t so evident. Content seemed to be about informing you of things, not a hard sell that demands your attention. We didn’t have social media then, so our influencers were our family, friends or colleagues. We informed each other of what was happening, we looked at the ads on TV but didn’t feel the need to rush out and buy because we weren’t getting bombard from every direction.
As human’s we evolve. We look to improve ourselves, our environment, our capability. With the advent of AI we are leaping into new territory. This is a great advancement used in the right way, my concern is those organisations that are trying to push AI onto us as something that we should use, which is done without any framing or intent to educate us on the safe way to use it. AI isn’t a toy, it isn’t a replacement for using our brain. There is potential if not use correctly, to allow AI to take over everything you do thus taking away individual creativity. I suspect this is one of the reasons some in the music industry are not keen for AI to be used, also the fact of replication of an artists voice.
Another annoying factor of some companies use of AI is substituting AI for something that is already basic and easy to do, then taken away our ability to do something manually without notice. Why do they find it necessary to push things onto us without consultation?
We need to be researchers, explore and fact check and learn. This is a skill that should be taught at school. Children are often the target of content pushing and it is not always about fast food , it could also be dangerous content. We cannot allow our children or ourselves to be led by what is constantly being pushed. By researching, you find evidence, you find understanding. Inform yourself and be discerning.