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Evidence Mounting on Social Media Saturations

by Larry Heather

We need to examine the effect of Social Media on

elections and personal life. Facebook, Twitter, Texting. Is their
influence for good or for ill? Are they the long sought after dynamic
that will finally integrate disengaged people into the Election process,
or is there more to the story?
I heard from an acquaintance recently who was rear-ended by a
car behind him. Unharmed, he checked to see if the man who hit him
was ok. To his amazement the man, unfazed and completely
engrossed, was completing the texting that had caused the accident.
Such is the potential addiction of the little glowing distractor that
some continue to answer in car by day and in bed all night long.
A recent article by Derek Abma of PostMedia News found that
20% of 4,000 teens studied were classed as hyper-texters, meaning
they sent over 120 text messages per school day. It was found that
excessive texting greatly expanded the teens likelihood to participate
in high risk behavior because of an overwhelming exposure to peer
pressure.
Group members who morph into leaders soon come to realize the
vulnerability of people, who can be caused to participate in swarming
activity that is proven to be unpredictable.
The work of Hyper Media Analyst Konrad Becker is instructive in the
effect of the social media.
People with the biggest variety of experience and knowledge are
the hardest to influence. The reduction of the number of choices
available to a person’s thinking by the skillful re-framing of questions
reduces the awareness of other possibilities. This is a real danger not
only by social media but the publishing of Public Opinion polls in an
election.
Humans possess the capacity to relinquish their autonomy becoming
vulnerable to alertness reduction, programmed confusion and
flattening of the mind. In cults, elimination of individual ideas is often
effected by repetition of chants and phrases.

Creating anxiety and fear, inducing states of high suggestibility

and controlling relationships to assure loyalty and obedience are
tactics that could exploit situations, including an election.
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Susceptibility to emotional arousal results if the nervous system
is stressed through junk-food diets, prolonged mental and physical
activity and lack of sleep. False intimacy is created through
emotionalism and the need to belong is exploited. Loss of ability to
evaluate logically can result from the loss of privacy and a constant
interruption of cues coming from the outside.
Caution is also mounting over the possible disruption of steady
cell-phone use. Microwaves could be proven to disrupt human brain
function remembering that the brain itself is an electrically mediated
organ.
In addition, we see many people on behavior control drugs. Even
more are habitually mind altered by the use of marijuana and other
illegal drugs. In a rave party, the combination of flashing lights,
exposure to incessant technobeat rhythms and use of drugs can
produce a state of hyper-suggestibility with tragic results. In the face
this mounting evidence we need to be “Men of Issachar, who know
the times, and what Israel should do.”