For decades, Latin America feared the narco. He was a visible enemy, with faces, territories and bullets. They taught us to protect us from organized crime as if it were the only possible kidnapping. Today, however, we have voluntarily delivered our attention – and with it, the will – to a much more subtle, more omnipresently and deeply silent network: algorithms, which do not trigger or kidnap physically, but have achieved something even deeper, efficient and devastating than fear.
They no longer arrive in vans or threaten weapons; They do it with notifications, suggested videos and personalized content that operates as a dose of digital dopamine, millimetrically calibrated to seduce us over and over again.
In this region where inequality, institutional emptiness and the need for validation are intended with hyperconnectivity, the economy of attention has found the perfect terrain for its most aggressive conquest: our minds, emotions and decisions.
The narco offered power, money and social respect in exchange for submission. The algorithm, meanwhile, delivers visibility, belonging and emotional stimulus, disguised as freedom. It is no longer about controlling territories or squares, but Timelines or feeds. The new cartels are not in the mountains, they are in Silicon Valley, and do not wash money: they wash perception, they mold reality with surgical efficiency and without leaving a trace.
And when someone collapses emotionally after spending eight hours a day consuming fragmented, polarized or aspirational content, no one assumes guilt. There are no bullets, but anxiety, eating disorders, identity crisis, social polarization and, in the most serious cases, silent suicides that are lost in a faceless statistic. Our children and adolescents are being programmed to never disconnect, while we continue to celebrate the “digital transformation” without questioning who is really serving.
The great paradox is that we care more about time in front of the screen than what she is sowing. Governments are absent, brands speak of social responsibility while sponsoring toxic influencers, schools continue to teach as in 1985 and parents, many of them also trapped, do not know where to start.
In this era of supposed digital freedom, we have become slaves of an invisible code that decides, in large part, what we think, buy, we already believe who we admire.
In Latin America, the bullets hurt, but not the algorithms, perhaps because the algorithm does not leave blood or noise, only a persistent sensation of dissatisfaction and dependence. Like every drug, it infiltrates pleasure and choice, until it ceases to be a tool to become emotional structure. And the most alarming thing is that, in a region with open wounds, fragile institutions and deep affective empty, this new narco does not need violence to colonize, it is enough to entertain us.
We have witnessed how messages are built, narrative are positioned and collective perception is manipulated. However, never as now such an extreme exposure, such a generalized submission and such a deep program to please an algorithm had been perceived, to the degree that is no longer recognized when he stopped thinking on his own. The most disturbing thing is that it does not even question.
This article is not intended to demonize technology – innovation, entrepreneurship and digital advance are key development engines – but it is also necessary to notice that modernity without ethical limits or human purpose is a high -cost mirage. What is currently lived, which is allowed collectively, must be appointed with all its letters, even if it bothers or if it implies assuming a shared responsibility in this digital disorder.
If this phenomenon is not addressed seriously, if families are not re -educated, companies and governments to face this new collective addiction, there is a risk of losing something much more valuable than time: the ability to decide who we are. The algorithm is not in essence a threat, but when operating without supervision, without ethics and without a human purpose, it has become a force that educates, polarizes, sells and manipulates according to interests outside the common good.
We were terrified if the narco recruited our young people; Today we should fear that the algorithm turns them into functional zombies, that they react but do not reflect, that they applaud but do not question, that they follow, but they no longer choose. And while that happens, we continue to slide our finger on a screen believing that we are making decisions, when in reality they were already made by us.
The future of Latin America is not being defined at the polls or in the congresses, it is being defined in each click, in each video fragment, in each algorithm that molds our conversations, desires and priorities. And the most serious of all: it is being defined without even realizing.
The author is a strategic communication consultant, corporate reputation and international public relations. CEO of Smart Business Mexico, has collaborated with global brands, opinion leaders and emerging companies. Passionate about social impact, communication with purpose and the art of building legacy.
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