Generating Conformity Trough Web 2.0

There are a couple of methods you can try in order to affect the behaviour of people. You can for example try to command, advise or provide informations to attain your goal. Another method is to use  and trigger the innate urge of people to act conform to the general norms of the society. The Kingston University London recently started a study about the last method bringing in knowledge from sociology, social psychology and behavioural economics.

“Everyday practices and habits are grounded in taken-for-granted assumptions about ‘normal’ practices [...] This sort of behaviour is often not a calculated choice, but taken-for-granted, as an inherent aspect of modern life. This helps to explain why traditional approaches that try to change behaviour by directly influencing attitudes and intentions often prove ineffective. However, studies in several related disciplines suggest that everyday practices are malleable, and can be nudged in a socially desirable direction by subtle forms of social influence. In particular, research indicates that feedback on an individual’s level of performance (e.g. electricity consumption) can change their behaviour, and moreover, that this effect is enhanced if supplemented by feedback on the performance of a relevant social group. This project will evaluate this process, using and developing digital technology to facilitate the capture and feedback of individual and social group information in a non-invasive, cost effective and timely manner. There are three case studies 1) electricity consumption, 2) active lifestyle and 3) Facebook.” [Source]

One of the keys is to let people know what other people do and give feedback. This is THE element of web 2.0.  This meanwhile lead to companies which offer to manipulate forums, blogs, online-magazine comments in order to distort the reality that way, that the naive user, who ie. seeks informations about a product or political coherences (!) thinks, that this product or political point of view is good/right because so many “others” recommend, use or have it. Corporations like the europe wide influential Bertelsmann Corporation (they own hundreds affiliated companies like tv stations, magazines, radio stations, temporary employment agencies and much more; basically they explain us the world and (provable) try to run it ) openly offer such services. You can, if you want, use your search engine and look for example for  ” Arvato Online Services social media monitoring”.

The aforementioned study of the business university tries to find out how to manipulate people with non invasive methods. One group of persons is equipped with mobile phones and gps. They constantly get feedback about how active they are, how much they move and how they behave compared to others. The background is probably, to see if those people develop the ambition to keep the pace of others or even to be on top.

Another group is equipped with energy meters in their apartments. They also constantly get feedback about how the other people in that group perform. The third group interacts with Facebook and gets monitored regarding their behaviour.

Thanks for reading

Zalia (Polignostix)