Does Facebook own our Future?

By Kyle Foreman

I recently watched the Facebook F8 conference, basically, a public stage for everyone to be inspired by the techy techy, swipey swipey, VR, AR world that we will soon live in.

I love tech, especially when it solves a problem in my life or others. Take Uber, Airbnb all kinda solving a problem, all be it a very first world problem. “Oh if only I could get a taxi sooner.” lol.

But what Facebook unveiled a week ago, was actually quite terrifying.  Sometimes people say  ‘being scared’ means your doing something right. Actually not true. Sometimes it’s just scary.

Meet Regina Dugan, the former head of Darpa who was running the Advanced Technologies and Projects lab at Google. She now works at Facebook and is developing technologies that allow people to interact with computers using their thoughts and to pick up audio waves through their skin.

I’m sceptical. Even though I am a Millennial, (insert rainbow vomit) I don’t want this. They showed the improvements it could make on people with disabilities. I mean maybe just enter it into Cannes now.

But on a serious note, at what stage did Mark Zuckerberg ask what we wanted as customers? Or what problems need to be answered in the world? Rather than just writing out our thoughts. Which is cool, but is it anything more than that?

The second interesting yet very Orwellian development is Facebook Spaces, a virtual reality app that lets you or mainly an avatar version of yourself, hang out with friends inside your headset. Maybe it’s on holiday, at home or in an imaginary world.

I mean again, what problem is this solving, apart from the

cool o’ meter being of the chain. Yes, there is a freedom of possibility that comes with this but, the danger is we will all be interacting with a version of the world that has been created by the some ‘guy’.

I think Facebook has become a Social Media Dictator: A ruler with total power over our online social life, who obtains control through the pretext of  ‘talent acquisition.’

They have already bought Instagram, Whatsapp and now Oculus Rift.

I think we should be more aware of what the future is becoming and who is creating it.

I don’t really want to live somebody else’s version of a perfect future.