Just as you would on a normal Google page you type what you want to know- then it takes you to a page that says "OF COURSE WE CAN'T PREDICT YOUR FUTURE" and goes on to explain that we as a privileged Western society are more concerned in ourselves even though we already have everything we could want or need; it really makes you think.
However, the links at the top that read "Images of Refugees" and "Videos of Refugees" actually do lead to those such links. This promotes what Van Dijck would call a "culture of connectivity"- we are always connected with one and another whether it be through time or space and the Internet allows us to feel connected to those who experiencing something very different from what we're experiencing. Google acts as an intermediary in the sense that it facilitates various communication transactions between users all over the world. (Purset, 2009).
The following link is an interesting scholarly article that further discusses Internet Intermediaries:
https://www.oecd.org/internet/ieconomy/44949023.pdf
Works CitedPerset. K. (2010). The Economic and Social Role of Internet Intermediaries. OECD Digital Economy Papers.
I think this Fortune Telling trick was a clever idea by Google to get us to think about how concerned we are with our own future, and making us realize that there are other people in the world who are in horrible situations where their future is even more uncertain than others.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I also think Google’s message that “of course we can’t predict your future” is a little bit ironic because corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon all try in a way to predict the future by tracking your behaviour. They try to predict future trends in society, and what you might desire in the future, in order to advertise and appeal to those desires. They try to predict what you might want in the future and they also influence your future purchases through clever ad placements and personal recommendations made for you.
This was clever as I fell for it before reading the entirety on your post, ready to comment on the level of surveillance we experience. This was extremely smart of Google to prey on our desire to have curated content and our desire for predictability. I'm sure Google will keep this in mind to market other products, but I am impressed that they decided to do some CSR instead of using it for capital gain. Other companies I have seen have used similar types of deception for CSR projects such as a fake site created for people who wanted to rent puppies instead of adopting and accepting responsibility for a life. This tactic of using something that seems too good to be true to create interest is very useful, and I think it is only acceptable to use this tactic if it is for a good cause.
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