Personal Data not considered personal anymore?
Is apathetic lack of stimulation the drive behind Facebook’s continued monopoly?
When faced with the multitude of sins that have come out since the Cambridge Analytics/Facebook debacle, why do people continue to use the social media site?
Clearly, for business related users then the need to be on Facebook was and still is a draw. For the average person, the need becomes less clear as there are multiple options for people to stay connected today.
Side note here; Using Instagram or Whatsapp you are still, basically, on Facebook. To truly cut this echo-chamber umbilical, all Facebook apps would need to be avoided. At least until their game plan changes and they catch up with the personal requirements of today’s digital citizen.
Obviously we are all different yet all very alike in many ways.
Without this fact big data would not be a thing.
There would be no particular habits of certain types of people, no specific political leanings to be leveraged. ‘Big data’ would not need to collate all that information as the data from one would suffice.
But this is not the case.
Personal Data
How far does a non-personal,unofficial entity have to delve into a persons life until they are asked to stop?
Would you allow someone in the same town who you do not know to go through your things whenever they fancied it?
I think many of us would be surprised to know what a data gatherer could ascertain about us without meeting in person…
This is basically the same thing. The services that collate your data so completely then spoon feed it to advertisers should be paying the user for the privilege.
Apathy or the lack of looking for an alternative
So we come to apathy. The only logical reason that many do not leave the site in droves is simply that they do not care:
It needs to be recognised that, in order to personally take meaningful action on something, one must first experience feelings about it. So with no strong, driving emotion behind your actions you will not be stimulated to do much at all.
So continuing to use the same site disregarding the bad press and informative articles against it, this is apathy.
Until there is a way of having social functionality without sharing irrelevant information then the majority will stay in line, plugged into Facebook’s drip feed.
Dreaming of a day when we are not only paid to view advertisements that are actually relevant but that our data is also shared with those that need it, and only those that need it.