Can the Apps Read the Stars?
Getting to know why relying on new-age astrological apps may not be smart...
Hello!
Getting round to writing this took longer than I anticipated, as there have been a lot of developments (good ones mostly) around here. But I will hold on to those updates for a couple of days more and get down to the promised write-up.
I hope you were able to make some time and listen in to the recent episode of the Daybreak podcast that I was on: discussing Gen Z’s fascination of Astrology and their over-reliance of astrological apps. If you have not been able to do that, go over now and listen to the rather well-made podcast by The Ken team.
Gen Zs are powering astrology’s billion dollar glow up. Has science left the building?
EPISODE 280 DAYBREAK 26 Jul, 24
Meme pages, astro Twitter, mercury retrograde—astrology has become a pop culture phenomenon, not just in India but across the world
If time is short, you can jump right to my segment of 10-odd minutes which starts as 00:30:19, but I of course highly recommend that you listen to the whole thing.
Go on! Listen in. I’ll wait right here.
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Oh! You are back already?
Okay! I will assume that you have listened to the podcast – are all caught up with why the Gen Z is so fascinated with Astro Apps – and continue on from there.
As fascinating as Gen Z’s obsession with astrology and astrological apps is, it is really nothing new. Every few years, there appears to have been a slew of articles in the popular media proclaiming surprise that the most recent generation was obsessed with astrology. You can find articles in Time, Newsweek, MSN, and Fortune, all expressing surprise to the Gen Z’s obsession with astrology and how they are looking to the stars for guidance on all things be it, finance, relationships, career, or health.
Then again, change the search parameters of your favourite search engine slightly, and you will easily find articles in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, and even the Times of India, and Hindustan Times expressing as much surprise with the older Gen Y’s (aka the Millennials’) obsession with astrological apps.
So clearly this hoopla over “the current generation’s obsession with astrology” is the flavour of the season… err… generation! Whether these articles being driven by the journalists’ zeal to revise and rehash stories periodically, or is something in the astrological-business pushing these agendas and storylines is anybody’s guess.
Looking up history, it is clear that India has always been at the forefront of astrology; in fact, our obsessions with planetary influences can be traced back to 1400 BCE to some of the oldest vedic texts, namely Vedanta Jyotishya. This is the oldest known astrological texts in the world, even as ancient Babylonians appear to have practiced some sort of astrology way back in 1800BCE. Horoscopes, almanacs, gili jyotishya (parrot astrology), naadi shaastra, and even the age-old mysteries of the astronomical marvel Jantar Mantar are just a few examples of the myriad, omnipresent astrological charts and their influence on the average Indian’s life.
That it is not really easy to get married here without the mandatory visit to the local astrologer is now a universal fact. The eternal hope that the astrologer finds agreement to the otherwise perfect match can be read loudly in this Reddit post: “Who the $%#& invented astrology and why do Indian parents believe it so easily?!” But then, we are digressing down astrological charts and numbers deeper than any rabbit hole in the world!
I remember going to the annual jaatre (village fair) as a toddler in Udupi in mid 1980s, and being fascinated by the futuristic-looking computer horoscopes that took hold of the popular imagination of the natives. People would line up in front of what were clearly some cardboard boxes fashioned into robot-like figures (think Marvin the Android), with a lot of incandescent bulbs or even some series running lights, that continuously flickered on and off. Once it was their turn — after the long wait — people, mostly two at a time, would be given a headphone each to hear their astrological predictions.
Over time, we managed to get close enough to these “computers” and “robots” to realise that at the heart of these robots was a large tape recorder (boombox) playing the 90-minute cassettes on loop! Quite a Wizard of Oz (Udupi?) moment! But that did not stop the people from believing in the accuracy of these “high-tech” astrological predictions from the computers. With the advent of the early personal computers in the late 1990s, we saw actual computers being put into the job of churning out horoscopes. People just needed to fill in a few basic details — mostly their name, birth place, date and time of birth — to get their horoscopes and astrological readings printed in detail, two to three pages long on the classic dot-matrix printers. The “real” computerised horoscope readings had arrived!
During the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s, which was the heydays of AOL, Yahoo!, and Geocities, corporates were just beginning to set up their websites, but astrological websites — pushing for tele-calling and tele-consulting services — were already omnipresent. So it should come as no real surprise that that astrologers and astrological companies who were among the quickest to move on from phone to web to virtual online sessions had now moved on to specialised apps offering readings, predictions and what have you.
While all this makes interesting reading, it has generally been established since 1800s that astrology is a pseudoscience. This is basically because none of the astrological forecasts and claims have been able to be tested and proven under laboratory conditions. With that context, let us refocus our attention to the Gen Z’s reliance on astrological apps and its diktats.
We all know just how much data tech companies have access to and how they utilise the same to capture our attention and keep us addicted to their apps (think about the algorithms of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube), resulting in all the unintentional doom-scrolling that we end up in every day. These apps seek and collect every data that they can about our behaviour, likes, peeves, purchases, travel, etc., only to use it against our better judgement and ensure we are always seeing shorts and other videos that keep us hooked.
With this context, it should be easy enough for you to imagine just how the same data learnings could be utilised and used by a tech company creating astrological apps to take assessments and predictions to the next level. And why wouldn’t they? It is business after all, and — from the numbers easily accessible online — one of the most profitable ones.
This is the part that worries me the most about Gen Z’s (and all other generations!) over-dependence on astrological apps. These apps can not only improve immensely on the standard Barnum Effect and other generic psychological-based statements that appear personally relevant to us, but now these apps can go much beyond the standard astrologers kitty of cold-reading, body language, and face-reading skills. The age-old methods can now be “perfected” by applying the winning combination of AI and the collated personal info (think big data). The unlimited access to every bit of our personal lives and habits via the social app ecosystem, only makes this so much more potent and dangerous.
I will not repeat the points that I have already made in the podcast interview (you did listen to it, didn’t you?), but I do hope that this article helps clarify some of those thoughts further and provides you with more reading material. After all, being forewarned is forewarned, and I am sincerely hoping that this write up helps to achieve that.
If you are still keen to know more, I can do a deep-dive into the (pseudo-) science of astrology in a future write-up, and the overlap of some of the techniques between magic and astrology. Let me know.
Stay well. Stay safe.
Nakul