Your Platforms Are ‘Telling’ You What To Buy And You Don’t Even Know It!
How the rise of digital platforms are threatening to the individual users’ economic autonomy.
By Meghan Morris [620w]
We all have Facebook, right? It is ‘normal’ to have Facebook and ‘abnormal’ not to… right? We all rely immensely on this platform for much of our socialisation, communication and networking on a daily basis. These network effects make it essentially impossible to avoid this platform.
Furthermore, this denotes that platforms such as Facebook have a monopoly over a large demographic of the population. These technologies are prompting a new form of consumerism with the idea of targeted advertisements and consumer profiles through data collation. To understand this phenomenon, we must expose the significant amount of data mining these platforms partake in.
How many of us have a smartphone, with voice recording capabilities? This is one such means of data mining platforms adhere to. This is a setting that manually needs to be turned ‘OFF’ in the majority of tablets, smartphones, and laptops- thus the standard practice is for these listening capabilities and data mining functions to be turned on and allowed. Not everyone knows this. This is done so in order to tailor the perfect advertisement to your needs and desires, and perhaps even the loud speaking man on the bus’s needs, wants and desires that your phone overheard? Right?! For example- I recently got a coffee with my friend Joseph, we were talking to one another about a product we both wanted to buy. Seems innocent enough… right?
Wrong!!
What else comes up on both of out Instagram sponsored posts, Facebook advertisement, and streaming services advertisements, and basically all platforms advertisements ? None other but the product we were discussing only MINUTES prior!! I was no longer shocked… we both felt jilted!
The decisions to autonomously acquire this product was gone!
Now, I’m sure there is a litany of people that have fallen victim to these sponsored advertisements and in the current climate of our consumer-driven, capitalist society. I know that, I myself, like many others have proceeded to click on sponsored advertisements and then… BOOM! I’m waving goodbye to my food budget for the week!
The data generated by Facebook, for instance, creates a consumer profile for any future products that are relevant to the aforementioned one discussed. AKA Facebook now knows who I am, what I want and what I need! Scary, right?! What’s more is that Facebook generates 96% of its profitable revenue from these advertisements. Thus, they MUST be getting clicked. Nick Srnick denotes that these platforms are thusly “engendering a new form of capitalism” and honestly… I think he is right.
These targeted advertisements, in conjunction with the notion of ‘impulse purchasing’ has led to a complete reshaping of the consumerist landscape. I can’t help but note that while I was searching for resources to write this I was confronted with MORE of the same. My late-night KOGAN, Mario Bedescu shopping spree was back to haunt me! Here to tempt me with more amazing deals! I can’t help but make a note on the irony of this advertisement.
So how do we monitor and regulate these immensely powerful networking systems? Are there any checks and balances to keep these advertisements at bay? Or must we rely solely on self-regulation in a society that constantly tells us we need to KEEP BUYING MORE THINGS?
I put it to you that digital technologies within a capitalist society driven by consumption of things and the phenomenon of data collection makes it impossible for individuals to exist amongst these digital platforms without self-control and self-restraint.
