Social Media and the Colonization of the Caribbean Mind

Most of us in the Caribbean, Africa, and the rest of the Black Diaspora subscribe to the notion that we are all customers of social media. We think of ourselves as clients and as part of a social media community. A community that however hires PhDs from prestigious US and European universities to figure out how to keep community members from leaving the community ceases to be a community and starts to become something much darker and more ominous.

There is no easy way to say this so I will just come right out and say it. Social media is a great big plantation and we are the crop. That’s right. Moment by moment, day in and day out, we are being harvested. Every micro second, our attention is being garnered on social media and sold to the highest bidder. Social media algorithms were purposely designed to keep you online just a little bit longer. You say to yourself, “I will just look at this last video then I will go and make my mark on the world. Two hours later you are still scrolling.

What algorithms lack in intelligence they overcompensate in cunning. Rather than just supplying us with the information we need, algorithms notice little things like how long we pause on certain videos. The algorithm correctly predicts that we would like to watch more of that kind of contents and loads up a million similar videos for our viewing enjoyment. A few days later, we are still scrolling like gambling junkies at a slot machine thinking that the next hit will be the big one.

Now, you may be tempted to think that this is personalization. After all, the algorithm is serving up exactly what you like. The reality however is much darker. You are the prey and the algorithm is luring you into its trap. The trap is called the infinite scroll or the forever promise of more. More dance competitions, more cute animals, more curvaceous women and muscular men. There is no rhyme and no reason just more and more and more.

Researchers around the globe are rapidly coming to grips with a new phenomenon known as the Tic Tock Brain. A growing body of research seems to be supporting the claim that short-form video consumption is actively reshaping children’s cognitive development. Adults regrettably are also susceptible to the Tic Tock brain. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter which is linked to pleasure and reward, is released in our brains with each swipe we make on social media. This conditions our brains to expect constant, effortless gratification.

Once our brains have been conditioned to believe that rewards take seconds rather than minutes or hours, our attention span begins to collapse. The Tic Tock brain has also been implicated in the impairment of reading and language comprehension especially due to a reduction in our ability to focus. Anything that requires deep slow processing suffers.

Dwayne Simon, a communication specialist in Antigua warned that social media addiction is systematically destroying the cognitive development of children in Antigua and Barbuda. Simon pointed out that short-form video was impacting children’s ability to even watch full length movies due to the length of time it takes the movie to reach a climax. According to Simon, “If it does not entertain in ten seconds it’s on to the next video.” If our focus has shrunk to the point where we can’t wait 90 minutes for a movie to climax, waiting five years for a farm to turn a profit will surely be out of the question and reading a book is like being asked to take a bullet in the head.

Another Caribbean intellectual, Professor Wayne Devonish, is sounding a different alarm. Professor Devonish warned a room full of young entrepreneurs gathered at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Center that over reliance on technology could worsen loneliness, impair cognitive function, and expose people, especially young adults and teenagers, to serious privacy risks. Professor Devonish admonished the young people to stop having WhatsApp friends and go make real friends instead.

How will our region transform itself into a viable economic block when the shakers and movers in science, politics, education, business, and even religion are compulsively checking their phones every half second? How can we build a creative economy when our musicians think success is virality on a platform that pay $0.003 per stream, instead of owning their masters? How can we build food security if our farmers would rather watch a woman in the US juggling two husbands and a boyfriend than learn the latest techniques in crop rotation?

Years ago, we use to talk about the brain drain as our brightest minds sought greener pastures in the US and in Europe. Brain drain still continues to be a problem but an even bigger problem today seems to be brain drainage. Our bodies remain in Bridgetown, Port of Spain, Kingston, and Georgetown but our minds are trapped in Silicon Valley.

Under the old system of colonization, the labor of our ancestors belonged to the plantation owners. Today it is our attention that is owned by the new plantation owners in Silicon Valley. The results are identical. A people who are unable to control their attention will never be able to control their future. The British Empire used every nefarious trick in the book to make us forget our history. The empire of AI and social media is succeeding in getting us to forget everything, every eight seconds. They are padlocking our minds with their flashing glitz and glamour and we are loving every moment of it.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and The Caribbean Great Again.