Before I begin, I would like preface this by acknowledging that the world does not stay still and is forever changing. Whether for the good, or bad is up to the beholder to decide, but as the saying goes “the only thing that is consistent is change”.

One big change that has taken place in the past 50 years is the loss of shared experiences. With a limited amount of media outlets, less entertainment options and fewer choices, more people tended to share in the same events.

The Jack Benny Show is just one example. The program made its network television debut back in 1950. At the time, there were only three major television networks (NBC, CBS and ABC), which of course meant there were not a lot of choices.

In the 14 years it aired, The Jack Benny Show averaged a 33 rating (the 2019 Super Bowl achieved a 41 rating). Compare that number to the 7.5 rating NCIS earned the week of April 15, 2019 and you begin to see what huge difference there is in audience share. It’s also important to note The Jack Benny Show was not always the most watched program every week.

What would happen is a very large part of America tuned in to The Jack Benny show every Sunday night and then talked with co-workers, neighbors and friends about the show. It was a shared experience.

Fast forward to today with 100’s of television/cable stations, DVR’s and streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and you can see that type of shared experience is harder to come by. There are still examples of where the nation gathers to witness something in large numbers (the Super Bowl, awards shows, etc.) but those are getting harder and harder to come by.

And it’s not just television. Radio stations and formats have multiplied over the years. Add in satellite radio, Pandora and Spotify and well, you get the picture (nod of the cap to Charles Osgood and “see you on the radio”).

Researchers at Brigham Young University carried out a series of studies that showed those who shared positive experiences with others felt happier, claiming their life was more meaningful, and reported greater life satisfaction.

In study conducted by Harvard, 68 participants were split into 17 groups of four: one participant in each group was randomly assigned to watch what they were told was an ‘interesting’ video, while the remaining three watched a ‘boring’ video.

Afterwards, those who watched the ‘boring’ video felt better than those who had seen the more entertaining offering, but watched it alone.

In his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation, humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow stated that humans share certain needs, and that these needs can be arranged in a hierarchy, from the most basic ‘deficiency’ needs (those that make us feel anxious until they’re met) to the higher level ‘growth’ needs (those that make us feel happy and fulfilled).

As our lives continue to be more invested online searching for that next offering to keep our attention, the internet that once promised an end to isolation is now forcing people to re-examine the importance of the shared experience.

Computers and big data are getting smarter and smarter, but are we relying on them too much?

Bogus ads and fake news on Facebook are getting people’s attention. Being able to super-target a consumer down to age, gender, location and web browsing history is a marketers wet dream, but a question of who is minding the store is starting to be raised.

There is currently an investigation underway to determine if the Russian government tried to influence the recent presidential election, but there is even a darker element to targeting certain groups of people that defies common sense.

ProPublica, an investigative news organized reported on how Facebook’s automated ad software allowed them to target people interested in ‘Jew hater’, ‘History of why Jews ruin the world’ and ‘How to burn Jews’. The Houston Chronicle’s Chris Tomlinson tested those targeted groups with his own ads which Facebook approved within 15 minutes.

Facebook eventually removed those options after it was brought to their attention, but the question remains, how could that have been an acceptable target demo to begin with?

Buying ads on social media that are automated allows companies to keep profits high and costs down, but at what cost? Free speech is protected by the First Amendment, but do these companies really want to be known for promoting and profiting from these messages?

Disinformation is nothing new, Tokyo Rose was a fabricated name given by Allied troops in the South Pacific during World War II to all female English-speaking radio broadcasters of Japanese propaganda. The soldiers knew it was fake, but in today’s social media world, it’s getting harder and harder to spot them.

What responsibility does Facebook have? In the end, not much unless you are fan of credibility. Letting the consumer figure out what’s real and what isn’t does not sound like a solid business approach. Your friends might not stop posting, but companies might have second thoughts of having their ads next to a Jew hater ad.

There is another dark side to this automation without human oversite. During Hurricane Irma, people were scrambling to evacuate Miami. Travel websites starting jacking up fares that were $547 to over $3,200. Price gouging? No, just a computer doing its job of seeing high demand for an item and pricing it accordingly. Again, removing the human element from the equation.

How did consumers respond? They turned to social media to publicly shame companies for their practices (and to their credit, most responded). Until we learn to better humanize computers, we should be even more wary of what is being served to us in our feed.