When you ‘trust’ technology more than your own self

Like millions of people around the world, I was also left startled after watching new documentary, ‘The Tinder Swindler’. For the uninitiated, the movie brings forth first-hand accounts of three female victims, who were conned by a man portraying himself to be a son of a billionaire diamond kingpin. He apparently planted fake articles and doctored photographs on search engines and social media. Not only this, his Instagram account, which confirmed his identity to the victims, was filled with numerous posts flaunting his supposed jet-setting lifestyle, including luxurious European holidays and designer clothes.

Some people on the Internet called women gold-diggers, and a few others referred to them as gullible and being reflexively attracted to ‘Bad Boys’. However, upon closely deconstructing the movie, I realized that more than succumbing to the idea of a perfect fairy tale, women were let down by the technology and the enormous ‘trust’ we place in it. Why on earth a person, irrespective of the gender, would not believe someone who has a carefully created identity and presence on Google?

In fact, the women suppressed one of the basic human emotions, i.e., fear, which works like an instinct and help us identify potential danger and cautions us to stay safe when we meet someone for the first time. On the contrary, they flew with him on a private jet just after one meeting and it is because, they trusted the technology more than they trusted themselves and their instincts. The ‘trust’ in the Google results that portrayed the man to be a billionaire’s son, the ‘trust’ in his Instagram profile that showcased his lavish lifestyle, the ‘trust’ in the geotags shared by him over WhatsApp, the ‘trust’ in the videos that showed him and his bodyguard, bloodied, and in trouble, and the ‘trust’ in the bank transfer statements sent by him – let to their downfall.

Rachel Botsman, world-renowned trust expert and lecturer at Oxford University, in her book, ‘Who Can You Trust?’ discusses how technology has accelerated the time people take to place their trust in complete strangers. For instance, people use bits of information such as ratings and reviews on Airbnb and Uber to decide whether to hand over their house keys or get inside a stranger’s car. This has led us to a develop a habit of instantly trusting information and people based on a few clicks. No wonder the women did not try searching more about Lev Leviev’s family and if the diamond mogul, in reality, has a son named Simon. They trusted the identity of the man based on a few search results that popped up on Google without delving deep into the family history of Leviev’s.

Botsman, in her various public talks, stresses the need for technology to amplify our human intelligence rather than letting it take over our decision-making. She asks technology companies to enable people to take a pause and reflect whether they have enough information to decide whether someone is actually worthy of their trust or not. The digital platforms can facilitate this by intentionally ‘enforcing friction’ or ‘trust pause’ between processes instead of focusing on seamless transactions, for instance.

Ultimately, the technology that is promising instant results and gratification is putting us into an automatic mode and restricting our thinking and decision-making abilities. While the tech companies ponder upon this, we as humans, should start trusting ourselves more than we trust the technology. Hence, next time when you use a navigation app for generating a faster route, I hope you pause and reflect, if it is safer to go on your regular route instead. The detour could lead to a dead end as it has happened with me on several occasions.

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Tagged with: Grey Realities blog • India blog • Pallavi Bansal blog • technology • trust