Google handles 1.2 trillion searches annually which is 40,000 every second and Facebook sees 1,36,000 photos posted, 5,10,000 comments posted and 2,93,000 status updates every minute. Between the two, they command over an hour of time of the average consumer every day, an astonishing feat by any standards
It started with Arab Spring —a few thousand posts on social media created a significant uprising that threatened to challenge conventional leadership ideas and bring the voice of the citizen to the fore. It got more attention recently when the BREXIT vote and even the outcome of the US Presidential election were seen to have been influenced and some believe manipulated by the clever use of social media. Is all this true and where is all this taking us?
In the US particularly, the rise of the tech titans - Amazon, Apple Microsoft, Facebook and Alphabet (parent company of Google) has enabled a big push to be given by the private sector to the ownership of data and the formation of public opinion in the country and often in the rest of the world. And all this is a fairly recent phenomenon. Amazon as a company started only in 1994, Google in 1998 and Facebook in 2004 and even Microsoft became significant only after it partnered with IBM in the eighties and Apple became a force after the return of Steve Jobs in 1997. The rise of the smartphone as the most dominant medium of interaction and information consumption and the addiction that it has created (the average American touches her phone over 2,500 times a day and it may well be higher in Asian countries) has made the citizen a willing victim to the suggestions of influencers!
If one separates the three who have real paying customers–Apple, Amazon and Microsoft—from those who see the citizen as the product rather than the customer, namely Google and Facebook, the real problem of addiction in the case of the last two, becomes apparent. In a stunning cover story in Prospect magazine aptly titled ‘How the web controls you’ some stunning data is presented. Seventy per cent of data traffic on the internet is on account of these two companies who also garner a massive two-thirds of US digital advertising revenues. Google handles 1.2 trillion searches annually which is 40,000 every second and Facebook sees 1,36,000 photos posted, 5,10,000 comments posted and 2,93,000 status updates every minute. Between the two, they command over an hour of time of the average consumer every day, an astonishing feat by any standards.
It is the very model of engagement of these companies that is both laudable and also quite scary because they do not and probably never need to charge anything to the consumer which makes them virtually immune to standard anti-trust regulations though the European Commission has been levying fines on Google for abusing its dominant position in that market and China has simply refused either of the companies permission to operate in their markets. This has had a positive entrepreneurial fallout too for China since companies like Baidu and We Chat have innovated beyond the US model and created enormously sticky applications for the citizens of that country. And the big benefit—the data remains on Chinese servers! So why is it scary for us in India that these companies are running amok with our data, our time and possibly our minds? At the heart of it lies the volume and variety of data about our life, our work and our preferences that these companies have about us and how they can use it to influence our own thinking on products and even issues. It also enables them to be market makers and channelise targeted selling messages from their advertisers to those of us who have the highest propensity to buy a certain product or service at a certain time and at a given price.
The rise of Amazon, Apple Microsoft, Facebook and Alphabet has given a big push to the private sector to the ownership of data
By itself, the ability to persuade may just seem to be an interesting marketing opportunity won by the tech titans through the superiority and attractiveness of their service. However, the dark possibilities that exist to unduly influence public opinion as was seen to some extent in the US elections and the BREXIT vote give the scare that our lives and our thoughts may not be our own anymore. And if this concern springs in the minds of many of us who are digital immigrants, imagine the plight of the digital natives who know no better world than to be inundated night and day by their connection to their mobile phones and through that to the power of suggestions on the internet.
We are living in a changing world and will not be dissuaded by any amount of gentle suggestions through videos of people banging into lampposts walking down a street with their eyes on their device! There is no going back to an era when a pair of lovers could spend hours in a café without ever losing eye or hand contact. Today they would be hard-pressed not to let their eyes stray to their phone even for fifteen minutes. Enough already, let me get back to my WhatsApp!
Dr Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of 5F World, Pune City Connect and Social Venture Partners, India.
By Ganesh Natarajan
