When our body's cells proliferate uncontrollably, cancer results, a diseased state in which growth perversely causes death. I recently read an article about how the claims that marketers, businesses, and medical researchers are making about the benefits of mindfulness are, according to actual research, seriously overblown. The problem with mindfulness struck me as marketing gone malignant. There appears to be consensus that mindfulness, as it is understood in its purest form, is a good thing. When marketers and businesses try to capitalize it, mindfulness becomes practically unintelligible and, in the best case, of no benefit. In the worst case, this marketed or capitalized mindfulness can be both passively and actively harmful by creating an expectation that difficult existential problems have a simple, commercial fix.
Although the thing that prompted me to look at how marketing works in the contemporary world was mindfulness, the lesson seems to be applicable to practically all commercial space. Hence, the challenge is to remain attentive or alert to what is significant or substantive when one is overwhelmed with capitalized dross in what I call the malignant marketing living space. Marketers will tend to capitalize anything that draws interest from a measurable population. Given our interaction with "smart" technologies and digital interfaces, the measurable population can be as small as one. It is critical to note that the connectivity we experience is no bad per se. We can benefit from connections made or suggested through algorithms or other methods. What is bad about the connectivity is that every connection made carries with it information that can be and usually is capitalized. There are few if any connections that have no commercial aspect to them. It is a constant, though not impossible, challenge to parse substantive or intrinsic value from capitalized components, features, or accouterments.
Why the ubiquitous capitalization of information and connectivity is problematic can be exemplified by comparing a search engine and a librarian. A search engine cannot exist without exist without commercial support, usually in the form of advertisers. Hence, the search engine will capitalize on information analysis and delivery by producing results that have been either determined or heavily influenced by the commercial concerns of advertisers or other financial contributors. On the other hand, a librarian is human and as such will have biases, but if you ask him for help finding books about the Battle of Midway, he is not going to direct you to titles from Amazon or Barnes & Noble that may or may not be decent resources but are practically certain to appear in digital searches because of their commercial popularity. The librarian, though less efficient than a search engine in terms of brute strength of basic information processing, should do a better job of directing the library patron to the books most closely suited to her purpose (academic, hobby, general curiosity, etc.). The library patron will lose the size and speed of the search engine's results, but she will gain the reliability of a non-capitalized suggestion. This type of connection or suggestion has value because it is not driven by commercial considerations and it in turn has substantive merit based on what the content is (as a response to user need) as opposed to who produces the content and how well the content is selling.
The digital space, absent a massive ecological or planet-wide disaster, will continue to occupy a huge portion of human interaction and attention for the foreseeable future. Suggesting otherwise or advocating that we avoid the digital space is unrealistic at best and quixotic at worst. Nevertheless, malignant marketing can be identified and shunted our of one's intellectual space if she knows what to look for. Additionally, citizens can demand that public officials maintain existing and create new neutral information and connectivity options in the digital space. A library is a good example of a service that can operate in the digital space non-commercially, so long as its digital presence remains commercially neutral, i.e. public funds are used exclusively to build and maintain the digital space rather than corporate donations.
Regardless of whether the people demand and policymakers deliver commercially neutral digital spaces, individuals can learn to recognize marketing and capitalization of digital spaces and information delivery. As such, individuals can learn to separate wheat from chaff, metal from dross. News is a good example of where this skill is both necessary and easy to learn. First, one can easily learn to distinguish the subject of a news story from the bias, opinion, and point of view of the author or organization. Second, using multiple news sources with differing organizational points of view is a useful way to discern editorial bias by comparing both differing treatments of the same story and comparing the stories that actually get covered. It functions as a sort of saccades for building a representation of what actually happened. Although digital media conflate reporting and opinion more readily than pre-digital media which can make separating point of view from story harder, the ability to compare multiple sources is immeasurably easier in the digital milieu.
Simply knowing when one's digital interface or interaction is capitalized or commercial helps assess the quality and bias of the information presented. Most even mildly sophisticated digital spaces that have a search function will use your past and current viewing history along with an algorithm to predict what sorts of things you are likely to be interested in. This capitalizes our digital behavior and is not wholly bad. If you are looking for a specific type of product, an algorithm that gives you options to choose from is useful so long as the choice is real and not the offerings of a disguised monopoly. This maintains, presumably, competitive offerings and pricing which should be good for consumers.
The problem with algorithmic recommendations is that they are by necessity narrowed to results that are commercially relevant or viable for the organization that owns the algorithm. Again, if one is searching for a commercial product, commercial relevance and viability are expected. Algorithms become especially problematic when the searcher seeks more general information or non-commercial information. In these cases, the algorithms have a blunting or stultifying effect. General searches often are most successful when they turn up serendipitous information. I am not sure how serendipity can be programmed into search/recommendation algorithms. I certainly have not encountered it.
What do I mean by 'serendipity'? I will start with an example of dinner choice. Some of the most enjoyable meals I have had in (especially) cities that are new to me often involve little planning. I find an interesting neighborhood and wander around until I discover a place that looks interesting, has an interesting menu, and is crowded. This has led to some of the best dining experiences I have had. It is has also led to experiences I probably wouldn't have otherwise had if I relied on commercial search engines or social media sites. Recently, I discovered an excellent bibimbop place and doughnut shop in Chicago simply driving around an interesting neighborhood until something struck my fancy.
Physical libraries are another place where serendipitous searching happens. As all know, libraries organize stacks of books by subjects. In the past I have gone to subjects areas in which I was interested in but without specific titles in mind. I let my eyes wander over the stacks until something strikes me as interesting. Doing so has led to the discovery of J.R.R. Tolkien and many other tremendously interesting and useful books in many different subject areas. The discoveries were due to chance. That is the essence of serendipity: finding something useful or interesting that you weren't necessarily looking for. I think this is harder to do in the digital space because everything is targeted based on your digital footprint.
Distant searches or connections are stultified when search algorithms and other digital interactions are constantly capitalized. This eliminates the authenticity of experience that is available. To return to mindfulness, a search today will generate information that is less practical and more commercial. Hence you will find articles in business publications and pop psychology, but rarely will you encounter publications that offer hard treatments of what mindfulness is and how it can be achieved authentically. Authentic mindfulness is difficult to achieve and requires a sustained commitment. You will not discover this from a Google-mediated search.
Marketing in the digital space is strangely ubiquitous, prolific, and self-propagating. It is important to identify when it is occurring so that we can assess information for the legitimacy of its content. Otherwise, all information will be mere capitalization. In addition, we as a people should demand that our policymakers maintain existing digital spaces that are commercially neutral and, if possible, develop new commercially neutral digital spaces. Marketing is a distortion. We need to learn to see clearly. It is something we should be mindful of.
