Search and you will be found!

Last week I googled 'green paint for small living room' as I need to paint my house and am starting with the living room. I also googled 'mother-of-the-bride dress' as a friend has engaged me to help her find something for her daughter's wedding and as I'm not a fashion browser I needed to look up what is currently available!

As a consequence, I'm receiving constant pop-ups in my emails, on my Facebook page and Instagram regarding green paint products and elegant dresses in expensive boutiques. Some of the feeds were actually helpful but the unfortunate part of tapping into the feeds is that the feeds concerning related topics and information increase and become more diverse with each click! Now, that's not a problem for me as I have already moved on from the research with both items - closer to current dormancy re the painting task while the mother-of-the bride is now sorted (not by me)! I'm now blocking anything which pops up re green paint and dresses, so it will fade away.

We are all people of habit. Physically we generally go for walks in a few of the same places, read from particular genres, eat the same selection of foods each month, meet friends in the same places, pray in a particular way, etc. We have healthy and unhealthy habits which we are trying to constantly reinforce and break respectively. Often, we are not even aware of particular habits unless someone points out the pattern or asks us to do something a different way. Such habits which are clearly observable to others are readily open to question and challenge or affirmation.

Our use of social media and search engines is clearly observable to the commercial and influencing world which is linked directly to the search engines but not to our friends. No search is free! The cost of every search is that we can be found by thousands of organisations with one click on a search engine and fed a media diet of their deliberate choice. It can lead to a habitual pattern of searches and receipt of a bombardment of particular feeds, all of which occurs in the rooms of our own houses.

Organisations feeding links, have a purpose to draw us towards their products or influence with a gain which is in some way material. The material purpose may be subliminal or overt with any moment spent clicking or viewing being akin to keeping the door open on an unwanted door-to-door salesperson. Unlike the door-to-door salesperson who presents as a sole person, the online salespersons multiply by the second so it is more difficult to close the door the longer it is held open!

Activity on social media and search engines occurs behind closed doors so any filtering of feeds is freely chosen by ourselves. Every decision to search outside that which is for a functional purpose needs a STOP at junction sign before proceeding because whatever we read, see or hear cannot be unread, unseen or unheard! We have all seen images which we would like to unsee! The pop-up ads arrive in our pockets every minute and on every opening of a page on the internet appealing to click-expressed, one-time interest in a related product or topic. I prefer to be in control of my clicks rather than the clicks being in control of me! I'll continue my blocking pattern!

Cathy Burke,
Lucan Partnership of Parishes