POLL: Enslaved By Our Devices

A new examination of online habits by Neilson finds the average American adult is connected to at least one of their devices eleven hours of every day.

And there is a common course of affairs all of us can relate to.

“Sometimes I’m online making reservations for dinner and the next thing I know it’s four hours later, I’ve missed dinner and I’m online looking up Roman sewage canals,” explains tech consultant Peter Shankman.

Been there done that. And it’s not by accident.

Captology was coined in 1996 by behavioral scientist BJ Fogg. It’s now a scientific discipline being taught at many major universities. “Captology is the study of computers as persuasive technologies,” reads the introduction to Stanford University’s lab site. “Every day more computing products, including websites and mobile apps, are designed to change what people think and do.”

Yes, they are controlling our behavior, offering us – and specifically based on previous keystrokes you have hit they are specifically targeting each of us individually – rabbit-holes targeting our interests and tastes that will take us through a litany of linked sites each exposing us to more advertising.

We’re pawns on a marketing conveyor belt and we can’t get off.

“The technology out there today is definitely designed to keep you online longer, to keep you focused and going down that hole. In a society where 35% of people are ADHD and ADD it’s only a matter of time until we rebel from it. But we’re not near close to that yet,” says Shankman.

There was a time in its early years that the internet was called the Information Super-Highway. It’s getting harder and harder to find the exit ramps

The International

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