Neil Postman frames the spread of technology in terms of winners and losers.

The winners are the big organizations, corporations who can profit off selling data to advertising agencies. The losers are us, who are told to embrace all technology as progress.

The following excerpt about the general rise of the computer summarizes the technopoly loser well:

"(what about the) steelworkers, vegetable-store owners, teachers, garage mechanics, musicians, bricklayers, dentists, and most of the rest into whose lives the computer now intrudes? Their private matters have been made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and controlled; are subjected to more examinations; are increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them; are often reduced to mere numerical objects. They are inundated by junk mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political organizations. The schools teach their children to operate computerized systems instead of teaching things that are more valuable to children. In a word, almost nothing that they need happens to the losers. Which is why they are losers.

It is to be expected that the winners will encourage the losers to be enthusiastic about computer technology. That is the way of winners, and so they sometimes tell the losers that with personal computers the average person can balance a checkbook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make more logical shopping lists. They also tell them that their lives will be conducted more efficiently. But discreetly they neglect to say from whose point of view the efficiency is warranted or what might be its costs.

Should the losers grow skeptical, the winners dazzle them with the wondrous feats of computers, almost all of which have only marginal relevance to the quality of the losers' lives but which are nonetheless impressive. Eventually, the losers succumb, in part because they believe that the specialized knowledge of the masters of a new technology is a form of wisdom."

The term Technopolyism is coined by Postman as a society where technology is the driving cultural force. In a technopoly "the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology"

Social media platforms now dictate our values, conversations and beliefs. Real discussion is replaced by memes and shortform content, we are encouraged, if not pressured, to send and reply to these bits of entertainment with our friends and family for quick, cheap gratification.

We are told that social media can keep us connected, informed and in the loop. We would be stupid to be skeptical of these dazzling feats of technology. And yet we subject ourselves to the content they hand to us. We only stay connected by sharing what is put in front of us. We only stay informed by consuming what is fed to us.

Winners in a technopoly build algorithms specifically to maximize user engagement and screentime under the pretense of staying connected. We are culturally alienated through a fear of missing out on the latest meme. We are guilted into being constantly available through the expectation to reply instantly. And as a result we are trained to seek constant authorization and satisfaction from their platforms.