I really enjoyed reading Derek’s Attention Economy post. He dived deeper into the discussion of the ‘Dark Web’ and contextualized what he learned through User Inyerface. Basically, he looked at the user interface of both Craigslist and facebook Marketplace and did a comparison of the users experiences.
Craigslist vs. facebook Marketplace
Derek couldn’t be any more right- Craigslist has to have the most uninviting, cold, blah website I have perused. Images are hard to come by, contact info is confusing, and notifications are just as dubious. However, bring on the big winner- facebook Marketplace. Even though the social media is technically ‘dead’ on my phone (I don’t really message or do anything with my account) I have been selling items on marketplace like hot cakes.
The reason Marketplace is so dependable and popular (I think everyone I know who is getting rid of old baby gear is selling it here) is the ease and appeal of the interface. And I would totally agree with Derek again, the daily recommendations keep me shopping. I have found myself buying items based on what marketplace has ‘found’ for me. This, again, is all based on what I have sold.
This made me connect back to this weeks videos. How the data is used and collected by “growing intelligences that we don’t understand anymore” (Tufekci, 2007, 14:36). I guess it is easy to see how looking stroller accessories would lead to more stroller sccassessor ideas, but this again, is controlling my time outside of what I came looking for. Derek makes a good point- I would be naive to think that businesses aren’t trying to manipulate me for a sale- but sometimes it’s hard to discern what a business is and what is being sold.
It was much easier when you would walk into a store and see 2-for-1 deals, etc. But now, these algorithms that we really don’t understand seem to be ‘dark web’ like. More importantly kids, teenagers, the elderly- and a variety of other people with language barriers, etc. do not necessarily have the technique or hindsight to see around manipulations. We are an educated bunch, but what about those who lack digital literacy skills?
Derek’s post made me reconsider what I shared and also made me cognizant of patterns I might be missing.
References
Tufekci, Z. (2017). We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dystopia_just_to_make_people_click_on_ads?language=en (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
