- In the new network empires,

there's only one commodity that counts and that is data.

Their business models increasingly center

around harvesting users' data

and that in turn means maximizing user engagement.

Because the more time you spend on Facebook,

the more ads you're likely to see

and the more lucrative data

about your personal preferences you're gonna generate.

(futuristic electronic music)

That means that social media companies

and other network platforms will only survive and thrive

if they can keep us hooked.

In 2009, Facebook came up with this brilliant way

to captivate our helpless brains with hits of dopamine,

the like button.

You may not realize it,

but every time you like or comment on a post,

you're giving the network platform some of your data.

Do you think the people, engineers,

working at the big tech companies

consciously knew that they were setting out

to create addicts?

- Certainly in some cases, I think people were intentionally

trying to drive up engagement.

In some cases, people were just trying to build a product

that people liked.

Until a couple years ago, there was very little idea

of people could like our product too much.

- [Ferguson] One way of thinking about data

in the modern economy is to call it the New Oil.

These two valuable commodities,

one pumped out of the ground, one pumped out of us,

have been the bases of economic revolutions

and each one became the foundation

of enormously profitable monopolies.

(ominous synth music)