Social influencers are individuals who direct their fans to purchase certain products through their action on social media. Somehow, they have acquired a certain personal credibility and use it to persuade those who follow them on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter,etc. This phenomenon hides the growth, especially in the world of adolescents, of the phenomenon of solitude and voluntary isolation from the real world.

Social influencers are individuals who have acquired some credibility and use it to direct their fans towards the purchase of certain products through their action on social media.

Before the advent of the Internet, traditional information was based on the recognized authoritativeness of the sources, although this requirement did not guarantee the reliability of the contents. In the Internet Age, digital information is no longer based on the authority of sources (or in any case much less), but on their independence. This is an advantage for freedom of thought, but it can become a risk for the quality of information.

The information conveyed by technology gave rise in the 1990s to a new branch of study, called captology, which deals with persuasion through computers, the internet and all new ways of communicating on the Web (Websites, Blogs, Social Media, etc.). The captology, created by psychologist BJ Fogg, teaches how to design the new means of communication so that they are persuasive and credible. For example, the continuous proposition of the "like" button persuades us to make judgments which are then used by the media to direct our subsequent research and related targeted commercial offers.

do not yield to the continuous requests of the software. Software does not suffer from waste!

digital anonymity is an illusion. In the event of illegal online activities, law enforcement agencies always manage to identify those responsible (also on the deep web). In the case of normal social network activities, those who use nicknames are only taking advantage of the Net to organize their own self, similarly to what each of us does in the real social environment, that is, wearing a mask for each environment.

audio, video, simulations are certainly effective and persuasive, but it is necessary to maintain the critical ability to evaluate their actual content value.

: it will be difficult to escape the persuasiveness of devices on which our health and safety depends: only a critical ever vigilant spirit can control their solicitations.

Over the past two decades, many online credibility studies have been done at US universities. The models behind these studies are those of the "persuasive communication".

Persuasion presupposes a "change of attitude" by the individual who receives the persuasive messages.

Communication with good and complex subjects exerts a greater impact on recipients with strong cognitive ability (vs. poor cognitive ability), while simple communication produces a greater impact on recipients with poor cognitive ability (vs.strong).

Captology: how digital devices are programmed to persuade us

The captology, in the intentions of its founder, the psychologist BJ Fogg, is defined:

"The captology investigates the way in which people are motivated or persuaded interaction with, rather than through the computer"

Therefore, captology deals with the human-computer interrelation and not with the linguistic communication implemented through the computer. Its purpose is to analyze how the interaction with a computer changes the behavior of its user. The captology offers"advantages over human persuaders" in urging certain user responses; they, according to Fogg, are the following:

· Computer (software, website, apps, etc.) are much more insistent than people: for example, many of you will have downloaded the trial version of a software and have undergone subsequent repeated requests for registration. The software is designed to insist, relying on the fact that people, sooner or later, give in. Instead, machines should not be imagined as if they were people: machines are not bad for us when faced with refusal.

· Computer (software, website, apps, etc.) offer greater anonymity:anonymity allows you to overcome the social inhibitions that force people within the cage of their habits. Anonymity can help people change for the better.· Computers (software, website, apps, etc.) manage a considerable volume of data: the ability of computers to manage massive amounts of data and perform special statistical analyzes on them makes them more persuasive than people.

· Computers (software, website, apps, etc.) use various influencing strategies: can offer several ways of presenting information that make them more effective than people, for example audio, video, simulations, hyperlinks, etc.

*Computers (software, website, apps, etc.) can be easily scalable: even when a human being is a good persuader it is difficult to make sure that his ability is exploited on a large scale, while computers can do it. For example, the election of Trump, who as a person has a high persuasive ability, was made possible by the diffusion of his messages through Twitter and by the choice of target simplemented by Big Data.

· Computers (software, website, apps, etc.) arrive where men do not arrive. Computer systems can be found in places where people do not arrive. For example, the Internet of Things is greatly increasing the presence of devices with persuasive functions around us. From smartphones to smart cars, from smart houses to smart cities we will be increasingly surrounded by "intelligent objects"that will try to direct our behaviors for various purposes: to promote our health(walking pedometers, activity trackers, etc. ), to promote our safety (automotive sensors ), improve our education (online courses), ruin us economically(electronic lotteries, etc.).

All these devices, and the others to come, will be made more persuasive by augmented and virtual reality technologies.

From smartphones to smart cars, from smart houses to smart cities we will be increasingly surrounded by "intelligent objects" that will try to direct our behavior.

Two different mental paths for those who are informed on the Web or use social media.

Persuasion presupposes a "change of attitude" by the individual who receives the persuasive messages.

Since we live in an environment full of persuasive reminders of all kinds, each of us easily understands that we cannot think deeply about every persuasive message we encounter. Mostly the opposite tendency occurs, namely that of not paying attention to most messages. So what messages are we most likely to pay attention to? The ELM expects these to be messages that are of very personal importance.

In fact, when the recipient believes that the message is personally relevant it will be motivated to a careful reflection on its contents. In addition to being motivated, however, the individual must be able to process the message. When the authors speak of cognitive ability, they refer not only to relatively stable ability to understand (for example, the degree of intelligence), but also to contingent conditions that affect the cognitive effort that people are able to produce at that particular moment, as well as the degree of comprehensibility of the message itself.

In particular, the ELM model of Cacioppo and Petty foresees that, when a person carries out an evaluation, he follows two alternative routes: a peripheral or heuristic route and a central or systematic route. The prevalent way in which users view web pages tends to avoid cognitive efforts (the so-called cognitive load) and relies on heuristic evaluations.As you can see in the figure, a user can find himself surfing the web (exposure phase) without a specific purpose (i.e. without motivation), but then stumbling across a hyperlink(or in other ways) in web pages that awaken his interest.

Therefore, he may suddenly have to evaluate the credibility of what he has encountered (evaluation phase). This model theorizes that, if you have both a strong motivation and a strong competence, you will engage in a thorough and systematic evaluation effort, otherwise the assessment of credibility will be superficial, it will take into consideration above all the attractiveness of the message rather than the its quality and will be heuristic in nature.

According to the ELM model, when a recipient is motivated and capable of processing the information content of a communication, any change in attitude is the result of the central processing path. On the contrary, when he is not motivated or unable to allocate a certain cognitive effort to the topic in question, any changes in attitude are the result of a peripheral path.

The ELM model applied to the credibility assessment of websites.

Since we live in an environment full of persuasive reminders of all kinds, each of us easily understands that we cannot think deeply about every persuasive message we encounter. Mostly the opposite tendency occurs, namely that of not paying attention to most messages. So what messages are we most likely to pay attention to?

Conclusions (provisional): individuals with high NFC (Need for Cognition) are more resistant to persuasive attempts by the media, advertising and people who frequent.

Persuasion is a communicative process that uses both rational arguments and emotional stimuli to modify the recipient's attitude towards the message. In addition to persuasion, there are two other factors that influence the communication process:influence and manipulation. Psychological research suggests that "individual" stable differences exist in coping with mental efforts. There are two types of people: those who have a strong reluctance to engage in intellectually difficult tasks, and those who derive pleasure from them.

Empirical research has shown that individuals with high NFC (Need for Cognition) are more resistant to persuasive attempts by the media, advertising and the people they frequent. From smartphones to smart cars, from smart houses to smart cities we will be increasingly surrounded by "intelligent objects" that will try to direct our behavior for various purposes. Since we live in an environment full of persuasive reminders of all kinds, each of us easily understands that we cannot think deeply about every persuasive message we encounter. Mostly the opposite tendency occurs, namely that of not paying attention to most messages. So what messages are we most likely to pay attention to? This seems to depend on our cognitive predisposition.

How do scammers manipulate our minds? This is the main topic dedicated to the"Nine human weaknesses" that persuaders can use to "intort" and make us act "stupid" for their shady purposes.

After talking to you about DTR and how easy it is to "use persuasion", I decided to go deeper into this topic. These tips will allow you to defend yourself from "psycho-scams"if you know them ...

Because today, they are increasingly frequent, in fact I would say that today they are the majority of the deceptions to which we can go against. With all the information we have available today it is possible to make millions of people believe that playing scratch cards is an investment!

It is these daily scams that interest me and to which I think most of us are unprepared. Because precise knowledge tools are needed to do this. We need something that the school no longer gives us, that critical sense that we have talked about several times.

Today we buy the snacks and we believe it is the cocoa in, but then re-reading well written at home we see that are "flavored" and do not contain any trace of that substance.

I know it may seem trivial to many, but you have no idea how many people fall for these language tricks. But these same weaknesses can be used even worse, to stir up peoples against each other or to manipulate our political choices.

In short, we are immersed in a war of mental manipulation, and as I said in the ANL,even if I do not like the war metaphors in this case, they make a lot of the idea ... so as always call to talk and see together these "human weaknesses":

1) Lack of certainties: some time ago I told you about how human beings cannot help but give meaning to everything. And when this is missing, they build it around, relying on the few clues present. We suffer when we are in an ambiguous situation, for this reason we cling to the first available meaning, even if it could be counterproductive. The case of the DTR exploits this very void.Likewise, much of human suffering stems from this ongoing attempt to signify reality.

When he felt uncertain, ask questions in order to clarify what is happening ... and always keep in mind your starting objectives. The confusion and lack of meaning is the base of most of the techniques of persuasion.

2) Everything is simple: the second weakness is the tendency to believe that reality is simple and of only one type. There is only one god there are only two ways of behaving, good and bad etc. The division of the world into sub-parts is the famous divide and rule.

All the bad guys in history have used this trick, pointing the finger at someone and waging centenary wars. This concept includes all panacea, the search for medicine that cures all ills or absolute technique etc.

3) Need for control would you have fully described in a recent successful ANL, think about having control over themselves and others is a mistake that can have serious effects. Despite this, man naturally tends to control his environment, and this can be a weak point.

As in the advertisements of some courses that say things like ... you get full control of your thoughts and emotions ... obviously nonsense they sell ... because they give the illusion of control, which is something that scammers leave to you, when you decide everything, raise the antennas, usually when they offer you something in the contract, you are two.

This need for control restrains us and makes us make bad decisions, and this is what scam wizards know.

4) Search for pleasant and immediate sensations: This leads us to do a lot of stupid things, from taking drugs and alcohol to believing that a simple visualization where we feel good allows us to get out of our mind setting. You know how I think about this model of NLP, making people feel good is not enough to change them, sometimes yes, but only in rare cases. There are many things that give us good feelings but that can ruin our lives, such as gambling,compulsive sex, and any other excess of something that we like, but that in the long run can hurt us like being all day on Facebook or something. In short, as the saying goes "too much stinks".

5) Material goods as a certain source of income: it is something remarkably like the second point, where you can get to believe that playing a scratch card a day is a worthwhile investment. We all know that with the promise of easy immediate earnings, people have lost huge capital. Perhaps this principle could simply be renamed as "human greed".

6) Love: everyone has the desire to feel loved and to love in turn. This is perhaps one of the biggest weaknesses and at the same time a strength. But those who cheat us know how important this variable is, even better those who found sects and clubs like that know it. Also taking advantage of the principle of belonging.

7) Being protagonists: being in the center of attention is something that many people like. A characteristic of the ego that you have been able to use for years, if you have had some relationship in your life and you have had to engineer to get it, you certainly had to make the other person feel important and most likely the other person made you feel very important. This sense of importance is a bit of an egoic drug. Today, to end up in a newspaper, some people commit heinous murders, and other stupid things

8) Being positively valued: if we have the qualities, we like it when they point it out to us. Even when these are completely unknown, such as the famous deception of some aromatherapists who, after they tell you that you have a particular energy and that if you do not download it you will feel bad, so you have to do a lot of courses to control it .

All self-styled psychics know this cold reading technique, where the subject is flattered, exalting and first the intellectual qualities and then the intuitive ones, "I see that she has a power that she does not fully use ... she does not fully exploit her potential" ... and who does not it does? Beware of free compliments, especially if aimed at some unknown skills ... such as intuition and creativity.

9) The model of the world: if someone knows us and through a series of questions, they can understand your model of the world, in practice as you think, this could exploit it at will. Like the salesman who noticing the colors of your favorite team in your car, tells you that he is also a fan.

Fraudsters know that the biggest mistake they can make is to go against others'beliefs. We like them to tell us things that we already think of, so we can say, mm look this is like me, and at that moment they can manipulate you. It is a kind of tracing guide, first they trace you to make you lower your defenses and then they guide you, in one way or another to do something. So, if someone makes too much of a big friend and "sounds strange", stop for a second, it could be a scam that is based on this "human weakness".

If you know NLP, have fun making it crazy with different changes of voice, posture and even conviction, like: "Well I also think that those on the left do not understand a bat","Well look that maybe he misunderstood, I am of left". Here with such a game you can not only understand if you are in front of someone who does NOT want to give you, but you can also understand that there is a reason why he wants to avoid going against your "model of the world".

Here Rampin made a detailed analysis of those weaknesses that are most often leveraged. And these aspects in turn leverage negative emotions: shame, fear, guilt, etc. But it is not said that they are only negative emotions, as many thinks. It is useless to tell you that one of the tools that can save us from scams is to know well the language and in general human communication.

"Not brute force, but persuasion and faith are the true queens of this world." -Thomas Carlyle.

Whether it's to seduce a woman, to convince your professor that you deserve a 30 and praise for your university exam or to be able to conclude a sale with a tough customer,persuasion is a fundamental tool, which you should always keep handy in your toolbox.

I immediately want to clear the field of doubts: I am not interested, and I despise the petty techniques often used by companies and advertisers to sell us products or services of little value; this is not persuasion; it is beautiful and good scam.