What Makes You Click
People you’ve never met know your tastes, passions and habits best. You have the ability to read your mind, shape your mind, and decide where you spend your hard-earned money. They are the capitalist kings of the new digital age – the online persuaders – and they are the subject of ‘What Makes You Click’, a new documentary from the acclaimed VPRO Backlight series.
Billions of people around the world are hooked on their computers, tablets and smartphones every day. At the same time, their online behavior is being monitored, investigated and interpreted in favor of highly profitable business interests. Consumption is no longer driven by roadside billboards and 30-second TV commercials. Every mouse click can help determine your next purchase, shape cultural perceptions of important issues, occupy every moment of our free time, drive social discussion, and even influence the outcome of a presidential election.
On the surface, our addiction to technology may seem harmless, but it can ultimately spell disaster for our most important human inhabitants. Free will, if there is one, may crumble under the pressure of unfettered corporate manipulation, and the notion of privacy may become little more than a pipe dream.
How much power is too much? Just ask the architects who operate behind the scenes of the network. Throughout the film, several of these enigmatic characters discuss the dangers inherent in their chosen fields of work, as well as the need for greater oversight and stricter regulation. In their arena, online users are not viewed with humane eyes; they are just numbers in a spreadsheet that must be programmed to bend to the will of corporate interests. It’s easy to cross moral lines when influencers are allowed to operate in total anonymity and omniscientness. The wishes of a few can determine the future of millions.
What Makes You Click is both a fascinating psychological study and a gripping cautionary tale. The filmmakers navigate these new unexplored realities from an informed and examined vantage point, presenting a series of dilemmas that our society will likely grapple with for many years to come.
Directed by: Martijn Kieft
