They know everything...

They know everything...

Madison Alexander

The latest chapter discusses how advertisers struggle to get the attention of people due to the daily distractions in our world. Facebook is the “attention machine”; On Facebook everything is an advertisement. Rather a advertisement for: who to vote for, what to buy, what charities should we donate to, what type of person am I, what sports team should you cheer for, and etc etc… Internet-based advertising made labeling and sorting audiences easier and more efficient (instead of direct mail) Direct mail has become very outdated and cost money whereas online advertising still cost money you are definitely more likely to get your money worth. I agree that Facebook is a big source of our daily information. When seeing a ad that interest you on Facebook, I am more likely to interact with this ad if it interest me rather than just treat it as a regular ad and scroll past it. After reading the last chapter, I was curious to see what other people’s opinions were on the series of devices like Google Home, Amazon Echo, Siri (apple products) that are constantly listening and constantly learning about our (the owners) wants and “desires”. Another thing I will ask he or she is if they believe that there is a connection between the ads and these bots.

The first person I asked was my boyfriend Marty. I first asked Marty what he thinks about the “rumors” of Siri being able to hear everything we are saying. Marty says, “Apple says that Siri is not eavesdropping at all. Instead, the software's ability to respond to a voice command is programmed in. So, it's not really listening at all times. The iPhone can only hold a small amount of audio, and it only records what happens after it is triggered by the “Hey, Siri” command.” I was pretty surprised how educated he was on this subject. He says that he watched a Shane Dawson video that takes about being able to hear someone listening to him after he simply unlocked his phone. He didn’t really buy the whole thing so he did research over Siri and other “bots”. I then asked him if he thought that advertising on certain social media softwares are based off of the stuff we look up on the internet. He said he’s not sure but he guesses that definitely a possibility because the stuff he looks up (stuff he is about to buy) comes up on his instagram feed. I asked if it helps persuade him into buying whatever he as is covering and he said “oh yeah it definitely makes me regret not buying whatever it is and it convinces me to buy it or at least going to the website and almost order it (consider ordering the product). I wanted to see if I could get him to admit he is was in someone kind of suspicion about the Siri thing so I said, “Everyone is saying that Siri and Alexa "creep them out" yet they continue purchasing the latest apple product. It can't creep them out too much. Yes- you can simply just "turn Siri off" but how do we know that our phone isn't still listening to us?” He claimed that Apple “promised” Siri isn’t listening to our every word. The next question I asked him was “If social media is the only way of getting news out to our generation what do you do if you don't have social media? Do you resort to the paper media? it'll be pretty difficult to get the latest information... How far would our generation get without the aid of our phone?” He talked about how often he uses his phone for everything; from navigation to reminding you to do your homework. He does not believe that as a active citizen in the society he would get very far or be very successful. The next question I asked him was “Do you think as we grow older that newspapers and magazines will slowly go away due to technology? When was the last time you read from a newspaper or a magazine?” He claimed that he does not even know the last time he even read a magazine or a newspaper. I then asked him “So as younger adults use twitter, instagram, snapchat and older adults use Facebook, do you think you will eventually transition to using only Facebook with other adults? Do you think we will eventually stop using the social media we use now?” He said that he thinks snapchat will soon become unpopular and that he already uses Facebook pretty often to stay in contact with his family that lives in Houston.

In conclusion I would agree that Facebook is the "attention machine" and that everything on 

Facebook is just an advertisement. Advertisements on social media networks do in fact impact social media users.