Across the digital media we consume, it is difficult to avoid an algorithm driven personalised advert.
A mere mention of white teeth at dinner with friends sees a whitening strip or charcoal toothpaste pop up amid our voracious phone tapping to scroll through Instagram stories. Such incidents can be perturbing and lead many to believe that we are entirely known by our devices. Yet how much can our phones truly know us, and how wary should we be?
How well do our phones know us?
It is true that plenty of idiosyncratic data can be gathered about us. Our smartphone is our favorite travel partner, meaning that not only are our locations tracked, but when we go and how fast we travel.
Apple Health takes information on our gait, and Spotify can produce playlists relative to our speed. Alongside this, it knows who we text, how often, and at what time. Understandably, many are unnerved by this level of knowledge, and we may find the accuracy to be alarming. How possibly can an inanimate object know us so thoroughly?
Equally, we are known in part to be flattered by the disarming algorithm, or even begin to be disappointed by it when we are sized up inaccurately. Should we be shown some expensive clothes or jewellery we may feel rather pleased that we have been given such a refined profile.
Yet should the algorithm show us an artist we hate or a brand we detest, we may scoff at its foolishness and feel, subconsciously, offended. The algorithm can act as positive, or negative, reinforcement.
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By GlobalDataThe power of the group
The reality is that the algorithm does not truly know us. While it is technologically possible to know a lot about each of us and link together the data points from different sources, it is often not worth the cost or regulation risks. We might feel that we are under the thumb of the algorithm, but realistically, we won’t automatically buy what we are shown or believe what we read. Our cynicism and shock related to personalised advertising confirm this.
Indeed, data collection is not a novel practice. It dates to the early 19th century. As mankind entered an era of mass society and was compelled to resolve questions about how to ensure everyone was healthy and educated, and how it could maintain the success of the economy, Belgian statistician, Adolphe Quetelet, came up with the notion of an ‘average man’.
The ‘average man’ is a collection of data that represents a broad sense of social forces. This was the era of Marx and the communist manifesto, and political unrest was rife. There was a sense of needing to control people as a group as opposed to an individual. In needing to understand and control what people are doing, the idea of an ‘average man’ for certain groups was indeed helpful.
Quetelet also invented BMI. We indeed know that an individual’s BMI is not necessarily a reliable indicator of their health but can be broadly helpful when looking at a population, and, perhaps, deciding on health policies. In some manner, the algorithm and data collection works in very much the same way. We might feel known as an individual, yet realistically the data collected on us is simply used to place us within a group that is a helpful means to an end.
Adverts suggested to us or recommendations of movies and shows we might enjoy are informed by what people with similar preferences to us also interacted with. It cannot know the reasons why we opt for a certain show or buy a certain coat or cinema ticket.
Algorithms and the echo chamber myth
Another fear of the algorithm is the echo chamber. Before social digital news, the only option you had was to choose a newspaper that fit your political viewpoint. Now, we consume news from social media more and more. Arguably, this leads to the echo chamber as the algorithm clocks our worldview and feeds us what we want to see.
However, the opposing view of this is that this could expand our view more. Consuming more news may provoke us to find different sources and search for the most valuable version of events, or a more reliable piece of news. We may actually be exposed to a wider range of sources than previous generations. Now, the editor is not simply whoever is at the top of your newspaper of choice, but rather ourselves, our contacts on social media, and the algorithms.
Squashing the algorithm fear
When it comes to personalised adverts and unnervingly accurate recommendations, we treat technology as some otherworldly agent that controls us, when this is simply not the case.
The algorithm is not sentient, and it cannot know us truly. It simply creates Quetelet’s ‘average man’ out of us all. We ourselves may believe everyone is in an echo chamber, yet this eliminates the reality of people who search beyond such constraints: we, too, make the folly of the algorithm. We see the group but forget the individual.
