technology conscious or challenged

who shape our per­sonal pref­er­ences?

After a round of thoughts mainly focused on web design and all those involved in the various related pro­fes­sions, thoughts surrounding end-users and their choices bubbled up with no place to go. So however incomplete these thoughts may have been, I chose to jot them down while they were still fresh, hoping to make more sense of them at a later date.

Here follows a few questions I have asked myself lately…

  • Why do I never surf the web via my smart­phone?
  • Why do I never play computer games?
  • Why do I never pay attention to trends?
  • Why do I never use cloud storage?


Not very satisfying to answer all the above with “I cannot see the point”, but that is all I can come up with at this time. That I may land on the very same response when running into many other issues in life, does not reduce my dis­sat­is­fac­tion with ending up there. It is too easy…

As research into any­thing and every­thing regarding people's on-line activities is high on the agenda in all mar­ket­ing insti­tu­tions with respect for them­selves, complete answers for why we all have what­ever pref­er­ences we happen to have, should be easy to find.
However, all we will find is pre­de­ter­mined con­clu­sions reduced to and con­tained in worth­less stati­stics, and advices for how busi­nes­ses can brand and present products so they can exploit people even more.

massaging per­sonal pref­er­ences

Reality is that people's pref­er­ences either fall nicely in line with the major exploiters' wishes and greed, or they must be smoothed or hammered out so as not to harm big busi­nesses' bottom lines.
Any deviation is unac­cept­able and must be remedied by any means, by law if neces­sary. Divisions between big busi­ness and govern­ments are entirely illusory, and are ignored by those in power in either camp.

As everyone wants to appear to be on top of the games and ahead of any trends, most will fall in line with the major trends whether they admit to or not, simply because it is not easy for a person to ignore what all others do, and make ones own choices based entirely on personal wants and needs.
May sound like some­thing from a speech about any­thing but personal on-line surfing habits and choice of com­muni­ca­tion tools, and maybe it is. However, the same mechanisms rule in all walks of life, and free will is pretty much an illusion in the digital world same as every­where else – even more so because of the medium which pretty much is an illusion in itself.

let us look practical at it

All becomes so much easier when large groups of people behave as single entities, and refrain from all forms for indi­vi­dualism. People love being part of groups – especially large ones, and will do what they can, even pay big money to who­ever, to keep the homo­ge­neity and make others wish they were part of “their” group.

Of course, as trends have to change every fort­night or so in order to keep the markets vibrant, groups get nudged, guided and forced, and if neces­sary split up and new ones formed, when­ever the big players – sellers – want. No big deal it seems, and those who do not want to play the game, or at least pretend to, are just pushed aside.

Would be allright if new trends and changes were for the better, but they rarely ever are. Fact is that most often they are not even any different from what was there before, but just more of the same short-lived and mainly use­less solutions to dreamed-up and man-made problems. Practical maybe, but oh so boring.

still can't see the point

One page down, and I still can not come up with better answers to my list of ques­tions on top. With nearly 60 years in elec­tronic develop­ment, 40+ years in com­puter programing, and more than 25 years on the internet, I should have better answers for why I choose to do “this” and not to do “that”, but I don't.

Does it really matter what the answer is? Well, maybe not, as it does not change any­thing. Thinking these things through now and then does matter to me though, as I dislike having such questions hanging around even if I neither like the answers nor the processes to recon­firm them.
Anyway, maybe I have come up with the only right answer after all. And not to worry … I have good alter­na­tives that suit my per­sonal interests and habits better.

sincerely  georg; sign

Hageland 15.may.2021
last rev: 15.may.2021



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