Facebook, Mind Control and How to Take the Power Back - 18 Jul 2014
For the past month, Facebook has been dealing with public outrage following its decision to secretly run an experiment on 700,000 of its users.
The experiment was to test a theory known as ‘emotional contagion’. Simply put, they believed that by manipulating a users ‘News Feed’ to either predominately positive or negative posts, they could manipulate that user into feeling the same emotion. The results were predictable and troubling, ‘emotional contagion’ happened on both ends of the spectrum.
Upon publication of the results, people were, as you would expect, furious. Of course no one wants to believe that they are being experimented on without them knowing, but if we are honest the problem is much more disturbing than the that – the experiment showed us that we are not in control of ourselves.
60 years ago the BBC ran a survey asking the British public a simple question; do you a) believe that you are in control of your life – i.e. your thoughts, choices and actions have the greatest impact on your circumstance, or b) life, predominately, just happens to you.
The results were a landslide: with 80% choosing a), believing themselves responsible for their own lives.
Recently, the BBC re-ran the experiment. In a short 60 years, public opinion had totally reversed, with and 80% of people now believe life just happens to them.
It is a scary statistic, and one that goes some way to explain our susceptibility to ‘emotional contagion’.
Somewhere along the line we have forgotten that we are powerful people.
The amount of unsuccessful marriages are increasing year on year because we have adopted the lie that we fall in love instead of choosing love.
Paul’s words to the Romans echo loudly:
Do not be transformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds Romans 12 v 2
But how can we possibly hope to shape a culture that we have become enslaved to?
We cannot be so naive as to not realise that culture is constantly shaping us; every conversation, every advert, every TV show, newspaper and song. Unless we make consistent decisions not to conform, we are destined to be pulled along by a current we do not see or feel. One that is slowly but surely pulling us out to sea….
But all is not lost, Paul’s words don’t just highlight the problem but also offer the solution:
We must change the way we think.
But change the way we think about what? How do we know where we have stopped shining and started reflecting? Maybe the easiest check is this: where have you given yourself permission to become powerless?
What situations dictate our moods? And when does our mood betray our true selves?
How do we feel when we spend hours trawling our peers' Facebook walls? Comparing their filtered Instagram photos to the everyday-ness of our lives? When are we mistreating others due to our own anger or sadness, our tiredness or even hunger?
Where have you become the influenced and not the influencer?
One of the beautiful things about Jesus was that he was always in control of himself. He taught us that we, and only we, are in control of our internal world.
Remember that it is not a sin to think a thought or to feel a feeling, only when we let these thoughts or feelings control us. In the wise words of Martin Luther: “You can’t stop a bird landing on your head, but you can stop it building a nest"
And the Holy Spirit promises to help us in our weakness.
So where in your life is it time to take the power back?
All images are used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms: Feature image is a derivative of the images 'Facebook Burnout', by mkhmarketing, 'Blue screen of ... Envisionware.', by Jeffrey Beall, 'Invisible Man' by dnt83 and 'Nicole's Many Emotions' by Ally Aubry