How Google Marketers Exploit Your Discomfort

Google, Google Marketers

SOMEONE SOMEWHERE

We’re trained to serve ads in your moments of quiet desperation

Today, three out of four smartphone owners turn to Google first to address their immediate needs. As a result, Google marketers like me must survive on our ability to play on your impatience and impulsiveness when you’re using a mobile device. We must be there to serve you an ad in your “micro-moment,” the second you decide to use your phone to alleviate the discomfort of not having “it” now — whether “it” is a last-minute sale, directions to a soon-closing store, information about a fast-filling class, or anything else.

As Google plainly phrases it, micro-moments are the “intent-rich moments when decisions are made, and preferences shaped.” This belies what Google can’t say: Your need-it-now mentality usually comes with uncomfortable feelings of anxiety and fear. When you’re shopping in this mindset (for anything, not just a product), your restraint is…

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Google Misinformation: Fake News Medicine

I am not a free-speech lawyer, but when human health is at stake, perhaps search engines, social media platforms and websites should be held responsible for promoting or hosting fake information.

Haider Warraich, a fellow in heart failure and transplantation at Duke University Medical Center, is the author of the forthcoming “State of the Heart: Exploring the History, Science, and Future of Cardiac Disease.”