Like most people of this generation, I find it almost impossible to spend a day without using my phone.
Generally, my daily digital routine consists of me using WhatsApp throughout the day, and Instagram, TikTok, Youtube and Snapchat for entertainment or mindless scrolling. And Safari for any queries, online shopping itches, and basically anything else that might come to mind as the day goes on.
Social Media and Entertainment:
When it comes to Instagram, TikTok, Youtube and Snapchat, these apps gather data on what kinds of content they presume I like to consume. All these apps have an ‘explore’ page in which they collect data from my search/watch history to produce recommendations that are catered to my interests. Some of them even go as far as to show ads, then have a prompt that asks if I liked the ad. The more I use these apps, the more data I freely provide them on my preferences, so that they can tailor my experience. Sometimes, they can get the algorithm bang on, and I get recommended content I didn’t even know I was looking for until it appeared on my feed. But other times, the algorithm produces recommendations from content I’ve accidentally clicked on or only searched up once. Additionally, these apps have built-in notification services that I as a user did not sign up for and am also unable to turn off. These notifications can be especially jarring when they pop up throughout my day, urging me to join a creator’s Livestream, or check out something a creator I’ve only watched a handful of times has posted. In that sense, it feels much more like an invasion of my privacy rather than a reward of any sort.
The Internet:
Amongst all the digital labour I partake in, I surprisingly find the internet to be the least rewarding. If you open any news or shopping website, there is almost always an “accept cookies” prompt that dominates the page. Often because I’m desperately trying to get to the content, I mindlessly click “accept” every single time. But if you ever slow down and take a second just to look at what exactly it is they are extracting from you, you might just change your mind the next time you are prompted to “accept”.
There are many subcategories of cookies that users may be unaware of if we don’t take the time to read the prompt. And often, we are too busy trying to get to our digital destination to really care. Hence, companies are able to capitalise off of society’s laziness by offering an all-inclusive, convenient “accept all” button. By carelessly clicking accept to almost everything, I have found my emails to especially be oversaturated by companies I don’t even remember signing up for, as well as a general slowdown in the performance of my devices.
But overall, because these applications are pivotal in my daily routine, I don’t honestly see myself ever doing anything to change the way I feel. To add insult to injury, the more similar my everyday routine is, the more digital labour I produce for these companies to essentially keep track of what I’m going to do at a given time, so as to be invasive of my personal life yet somehow turn it around to try and make me feel special. But hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game, right?