In the 1970’s universe of Network, the general populace is glued to their television screens. The executives behind the glass thrive off the market shares they can get, which turn into profit via advertisements.  Network was certainly prophetic in its depiction of new media – Sybil the Soothsayer, Miss Mata Hari, Jim Webbing, and the Vox Populi all have their place in the present.

But perhaps now television has been unseated as the junction between the masses and the marketplace.  As discussed in a recent report by The New York Times, Facebook has pulled in astonishing numbers in advertising dollars, and only displays more and more capacity to grow:

Your addiction is making Facebook astonishingly profitable. Put a little more kindly, your emotional and intellectual interactions on the social network are creating a great place for companies to advertise.

What this means in dollars and cents for Facebook can be seen in numbers contained in its first-quarter financial results, released on Wednesday. For the United States and Canada, Facebook pulled in $11.86 in advertising revenue per user in the first quarter. That’s what advertisers are willing to pay to catch your attention as you argue with your friends and relatives over Donald Trump or coo over baby pictures or both.

As the advertising potential of Facebook, or some other social media company, continues to grow, more content must be generated to continue to increase profit margins.  And as social media permeates our life in every way- on our computers, on our phones, by our side at all times- the threat to our humanity grows more and more insidious.  Are we becoming the human automata that Howard Beale predicted, addicted to checking our phones and our computers at every possible instant? And who will dictate the media visible to us, and what goes unseen?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/opinion/sunday/kicking-the-facebook-habit.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/opinion/sunday/addicted-to-distraction.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/upshot/how-youre-making-facebook-a-money-machine.html