I told fb that I was born on the first of January in the year I joined. I got some adverts for nappies. I haven't had an advert since but I rarely visit anyway.
I use FB for free chats with Possum and as a means to keep contact with a few friends who are too far away to phone. It's more immediate too. I also used it to set up private groups for the dance club so I could load videos of the latest figures in ballroom, salsa and Hip Hop for people to practise at home. Very useful tool.
I use my mobile phone to say I'm going to be late/early, ask OH to fetch something on his way home and to alert patch committee colleagues that they have an email as 2 of them don't like PCs and prefer tapping away on teeny screens. Mad.
I have adblock on my PC and my mobile is neither clever nor has a good enough signal here to get such cr*p.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Your browser will have a locator, your phone (if it has GPS) does, your SMART TV (or even your Sky box (that's why they encoraged people into keeping the box connected to a phone line) ..... my daughter bought a robot vacuum (but why you ask) - and even that sends data. Viewing data is known (or can be) - ditto listening. Google maps on my phone tracks my moves and tells me where I've been each month and would I like to recommend places to others. Samsung health tracks my steps and how much I'm exercising. I didn't turn these features 'on' - they were part of the phones install bundle.
Your browsing history is known - 'they' (the ubiquitous 'they') even published recently that Brighton was the loneliest town in Britain - simply because they'd analysed the search terms used from people in Brighton (picked up from GPS or IP). My camera locates each photo (if I let it - and it's handy for me - so I do) - so if I publish a photo, people can tell exactly where it was taken unless I change or remove the meta data first - and when.
This isn't futures or hypotheticals. It is happening. That is why companies like Cambridge Analyticals spring up to process and make sense of all the data out there.
Facebook is just a source.
As long as people are aware - then it's fine - as you can then understand why certain promos turn up or certain things are recommended - it isn't magical or mystical - just businesses trying to use data to enhance their business. BUT and the big BUT is that it also then leads to the 'bubble'. You like something - so 'they' show you more of what you like. '...oh, you listened to Bobby Womack.... would you like to listen to Sam Cooke?...We've got this great playlist for you...'. That spreads across your whole online presence. So you can become cocooned inside your own likes/dislikes without then getting contrary input which leads typically to a more balanced view.
I think I've sent less than 10 text messages in my life. If it's important enough, I'll call, if it's not, then I don't bother.
You've presumably not spent much time in meetings. For a while, text messaging was the only way to get any work done. I went about 5 years when I was running two large teams of engineers on two very large construction projects and I must have spent about 5 hours a day minimum - 5 days a week - sitting in meetings. So I would be sending text messages to my teams asking for info and giving direction - couldn't phone and rarely actually saw them except if they were in the next meeting. And I've had a mobile for many years, since I used regularly to drive across the country on my own in old, unreliable cars. The hard shoulder of the M25, or the middle of Bodmin Moor on a black night (yes, I was surprised there was a signal) are places you want to have a phone with you. I am now on FB, but not in my own name and I'm only on one group, which is a charity that I help - they run their fundraisers on FB so I needed to be on there. But I have no friends and I do no socialising so the only FB messages I get are based on the work of the charity, as I don't give them any clues about what else I may be interested in.
Technology is a huge help. You just need to apply exactly the same mental filters to what you see as you do to what someone tells you down the pub. "Really?" is a sensible default position.
There are lots of us that are 'unconventional' but there are more who are, who have a job, a mortgage, children, regular holidays, a feeling that one should avoid looking one's age, a faint paranoia about health, rather more inches round the middle than the doctor prescribes. All these things make one susceptible to manipulation by someone with something to sell.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I think people just have to become 'aware' of what big data means. Take this forum for an example. How much could you glean from the posts here? How old the posters are roughly, where they live, what family and likes outside of gardening they have.Obviously friendships are made here as well - and enemies - and that is the human brain analysing posts and then judging the personality of the poster. A human trait.Data analysis is just the same. It analyses words, frequencies, combinations to form a view. If all the posts were analysed from me over the various forums - technical, social, hobby blah - I think you could construct quite an accurate opinion of what I am. That data is out there - that isn't trying to shock or worry people - but it is that 'data' that is now being 'peddled' and sold between companies on the net - as it's a valuable source of information.
You could say '...well, I used to belong to hobby groups and social groups in real life - and I went to the pub and spoke my mind. So what's different?...'. Just that now the data is captured - digitised if not already and is then available to be analysed. Simple as that.
SteveTu: I am enjoying your thoughtful, insightful analysis.
Ditto.
I worked in marketing for a while and tend to live my life understanding that whatever I do, someone somewhere will be looking for a way to make money from me ... either by selling me something or selling what they know about me to someone else.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
IMHO Some , SOME, NOT ALL, people are only too keen to jump onto every passing bandwagon. I'm constantly called a dinosaur because I still use a VHS recorder. I think they're just gullible consumers for jumping onto Virgin, Sky , BT or whichever company pumps tv into their homes at a price. Maybe I just don't spend "enough" time watching tv?
For some of us, Sky and co are the only way to get a decent TV and radio service. I expect it's the same in remote part of the British Isles. We also take advatage of the recording facilities to FF all the ads. No idea what bandwagons are there to be jumped on.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Posts
I got some adverts for nappies. I haven't had an advert since but I rarely visit anyway.
I use my mobile phone to say I'm going to be late/early, ask OH to fetch something on his way home and to alert patch committee colleagues that they have an email as 2 of them don't like PCs and prefer tapping away on teeny screens. Mad.
I have adblock on my PC and my mobile is neither clever nor has a good enough signal here to get such cr*p.
I am now on FB, but not in my own name and I'm only on one group, which is a charity that I help - they run their fundraisers on FB so I needed to be on there. But I have no friends and I do no socialising so the only FB messages I get are based on the work of the charity, as I don't give them any clues about what else I may be interested in.
Technology is a huge help. You just need to apply exactly the same mental filters to what you see as you do to what someone tells you down the pub. "Really?" is a sensible default position.
There are lots of us that are 'unconventional' but there are more who are, who have a job, a mortgage, children, regular holidays, a feeling that one should avoid looking one's age, a faint paranoia about health, rather more inches round the middle than the doctor prescribes. All these things make one susceptible to manipulation by someone with something to sell.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm constantly called a dinosaur because I still use a VHS recorder. I think they're just gullible consumers for jumping onto Virgin, Sky , BT or whichever company pumps tv into their homes at a price.
Maybe I just don't spend "enough" time watching tv?