Social Media selling our interaction data could ruin the motivation to engage with people and affect online businesses. Backfire in the end.

I recently noticed that my Instagram account exploded with advertisements. Suddenly I was getting postings from all my contacts and companies I followed.

It took me about 5 minutes to scroll down to start seeing some of my family and friends. People I truly wanted to hear from. 

My need to protect my privacy and freedom of choice prompted me to look into my settings immediately. I found the list of all the companies and brands Instagram shares my data with and my user interaction with so it can use algorithms to send me more traffic.

I had to select "send less" because it does not give the option to request to "not send at all." Also, I end up unfollowing all of the brands I like.  

I am a women-owned online business. I rely on online connections for my business, so unfollowing brands to control my content and prevent my data from sharing will also affect me. So right off the bat, I know this is a bad thing.

But it worked. The advertisements were significantly reduced. And it felt good that I had "some" control of my accounts.

Social media is supposed to increase our connections with people as human beings. After all, we still lack human contact and value, and the possibility of building long-term relationships takes a lot of work in this saturated world. And if I remember correctly, Facebook started with this idea, but it's all changing. It is no longer about people but what they can sell and take from us for profit, politics, and media manipulation. 

If we click "like" or post a "comment," all of these interactions are being tracked, so we could start hesitating if a comment, like, or sharing our view will be worth it. It will come with a price. 

I hope Linkedin doesn't follow facebook's business decisions, and Instagram reverts to the "value" of sharing life experiences with beautiful photography and art as it started. 

But as a startup innovator and passionate about disrupting systems, I see this as an opportunity to create systems and more social media that rebel against this. And people will follow. They always do.

And Facebook, Instagram, and anybody that uses this shameless business model will lose our trust.

When trust is broken, like any relationship, it can't be easily restored.