You can ditch Facebook. It's OK. You will survive. And not only will you get through it, but your life will get better.
This month's revelations that Facebook had sold, released or lost control of millions of users' data has left many people wanting out -- but wondering whether they can leave the social media platform they and hundreds of millions of others around the globe depend on.
I'm here to tell you can.
I left Facebook in 2013, declaring here on CNN that "we are not the customers, we are the product." And we now have proof this is true. Facebook was not breached or hacked by Cambridge Analytica. The Facebook platform was doing exactly what it is programmed to do: Harvest our data, identify our psychological triggers and then manipulate our behavior.
As users are finally realizing, neither Facebook nor the compliance professionals purchasing your data from them care about your secrets or your sex life. They care only about your raw data, from which they can infer your psychological vulnerabilities.
It's not simply that they can get us to buy a particular product, or vote for one candidate or another. It's that the techniques they are using intentionally bypass our higher brain functions. They use imagery and language specifically designed to evade our logic and empathy, and go straight to our reptilian survival instincts. Our neuroses are like blind spots. Once identified by the social media psychologist, they become access panels to the more impulsive parts of our brains.
Read more here.
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