Imagine you go to a restaurant and as you sit down waiting for the waiter to present you the menu, what if he just places plates of food in front of you instead. You try to oppose and he says we think this food is the best for you. I am willing to bet that you might not like the idea much.
So, when was the last time you had decided to watch a movie, searched for it and watched it instead of say launching Netflix, browsing the Trending or suggested movies and seeing one of them. Now, don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong in this and I am an avid embracer of tech. But we need to understand that there is a subtle difference behind this – whether the info/entertainment was pushed on us or did we go seeking for it (pulling).
The push model of information and entertainment has become so common that it has become second nature to consume them without much thought – examples are any number of social media suggested posts, whatsapp forwards, instagram swipings etc. But what needs our attention is when our intended seek/pull becomes a push from elsewhere. Take YouTube for example where you go with the intent to learn some new stuff like say how to solder circuits. But as you enter it also shows enticing recommended videos of other stuff that might lure you and bind you in a loop. Also the “Auto Play” feature which can take you to a new “recommended” video once your main one is done. Even the web where you Google for something to read about it and end up somewhere else consuming crap articles that you had no intent of reading 5 mins back.
As long as you are aware of these trap holes that lay everywhere like mines and you are willing to navigate this landscape prudently you should be fine, but if your every seek for pull gets transformed into consuming pushed content it won’t be long before you will just be a bio-machine consumping crap day in and day out without your knowledge. Now, you can consider this very article as a push of my morality of such stuff on you and you may be right but then you came here seeking for it 🙂