In 1937, Hormel Foods Corporation introduced a meat product called Spam, which聽generally is taken to mean spiced ham, although the recipe remains a secret. It聽is cheap and doesn鈥檛 taste too bad, perhaps because it contains lots of sodium.聽With all the calorie-rich fast food available, Spam does not seem much of a聽threat to the national obesity epidemic.
Spam, however, may be seen as a serious threat in the world of the Internet. In his review of聽Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet聽by Finn Brunton,聽聽worries 鈥渢hat we are seeing the diminishment of our public sphere as the Internet becomes one global mall where corporations finely tune their advertisements to our every need rather than a place where we might stumble upon different ways of thinking, and so forth. that help to diversify our world鈥 (final paragraph). Keyes says that in the book the author 鈥渕akes a forceful argument that the evolution of spam from direct e-mails into various viruses and botnets designed to enslave personal computers exerts a profound influence on the design, regulation, and everyday use of the Internet鈥 (para. 3).
That seems overly dramatic to me. If you don鈥檛 like it, you don鈥檛 have to eat it. Spam blockers are reasonably effective in keeping us from messages for walk-in bathtubs and organ-enhancing drugs. It is harder to prevent pop-up ads, but how much do people pay attention to those things? I鈥檇 like to know if there is any good research on that topic.
Perhaps I simply am unaware of the powerful Internet forces influencing my thoughts and behavior. What should we be looking for, and can psychologists do anything to help protect us from these hidden persuaders?
Read the Review
By聽Daniel Keyes
PsycCRITIQUES, 2014 Vol 59(19)
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