10 June 2013 (14:12 UTC-07 Tango)/01 Sha’ban 1434/20 Khordad 1391/03 Wu-Wu (5th month) 4711

“Operant conditioning techniques will and are currently being used to program the behavior of susceptible Internet users….”-The Atlantic

An article on ‘Skinner Marketing’ in The Atlantic reveals how far down the rabbit hole unAmerican corporate America is going.  The scientific term for Skinner Marketing is Operant Conditioning.

The article points out that the latest version of Google Maps is designed to target people with corporate products based on their location.  Other internet applications are totally about collection of your data, mainly for marketing by corporations.

The most common form are free gaming applications.  While you play those games the software somehow is able to guesstimate what kind of person/consumer your are.

The Atlantic article has some warnings: “The beauty of the Internet is that by combining big data, behavioral targeting, wearable and mobile devices, and GPS, application developers can design more effective operant conditioning environments…..[sounds almost like the Matrix movies, don’t it?]……big data, behavioral targeting, Internet cookies, and GPS positioning can all be integrated with operant conditioning techniques to motivate us to lose weight and study harder. But as with any technology, they can be employed to less admirable ends.“