Social engineering poses potential threats to human rights, markets and democracies. These concerns are based on the notion that humans are a product of their environment and the information they consume.
The average person in the US spends approximately 3 hours each day consuming data from their device screens. That totals about a month and a half of screen time each year. We are influenced by that time, and it changes our thinking and behaviors. Is our time investment making us better or worse as humans, parents, employees, leaders, mentors, friends, etc? Are we being influenced to become the kind of person we want to be?
Our addictive dependence upon the internet and the information therein is the revolutionary development of our time. Today, we have approximately 26 to 50 billion devices connected to the internet. For every PC or handset connected to the internet, 5 to 10 other devices will be sold with their own internet connection. These devices are both collecting data on us, and pushing information/disinformation to us. The applications, platforms and the messages we receive from them are not random. They are purposeful and managed by organizations intent on influencing us. Often these influencing efforts are invisible or overlooked by us. The influence strategies and campaigns being directed at us are called social engineering - the focus of this article.
