My Detailed 24-hour Media Log! Recorded on Sunday September 7th
7:00 AM : I wake up and begin to start doom scrolling on Instagram. I liked a few posts shared yesterday from my friend showcasing a restaurant he dined at and scrolled memes on reels. What these actions reveal to the Meta algorithm is that I may have an interest in viewing food related topics. Discretely more reels and recommended posts began showing local restaurants or Chef’s showcasing food on my feed. From this data collection, I understand that local businesses pay to be promoted to users who engage with food related topics or are predicted to be hungry by the algorithm.
9:00 AM: While getting ready for the day I play music on a JBL speaker in my room with music hosted by Spotify. While doing so, I have playlists dedicated towards up-beat music which shifts my recommended playlists to include faster pace energy inducing music. What I’ve noticed is that Spotify records a log of the types of music listened to and creates an array of playlists on the “Discover Weekly” tab. I personally have no idea how the data collected from this could be used in any way besides pushing specific artists to gain popularity among listeners with the same tastes.
11:00 AM: While on my laptop I view a tutorial video on YouTube discussing exercises and clicked on a recommended video discussing tricep related workouts. I then viewed multiple videos discussing strength training. What this shares to the YouTube algorithm is that I have an interest in fitness. The YouTube algorithm records my watch time, clicks on recommended videos, and video completion rate. Additionally, YouTube will log whether I skip certain parts of a video to add more data to showcase to other users the most skipped or watched sections of a video. I noticed after I viewed these videos I began to receive advertisements related to gyms and NordicTrack treadmills.
1:00 PM: While at lunch I use Facebook Messenger to talk about a camping trip with my friends. Whether or not these messages are recorded for “advertising” purposes, if tracked they would provide Meta with more interests about me. This could be anything related to outdoor activities. For example Meta may use this data to show me advertisements related to a new tent or fishing poles.
4:00 PM: I open Snapchat and I send my friends a picture of my dog at the lake. I then access some of the recommended stories on the “Discover” tab about traveling. What this shares to Snapchat is that I have an interest in traveling and perhaps pets because that was discussed in my personal messages. Regardless, since I clicked on stories about traveling, Snapchat may mark that as an interest and show me travel destination related stories/ads in the future.
7:00 PM: At home, I join Discord to discuss Battlefield 6’s October release, sharing links with friends revealing my gaming interests. I then browse Steam for its release date and similar genre games. Discord’s policy states they don’t share messages but may share shop data near the Nitro Subscriptions. Steam tracks my browsing, time spent per page, owned games and preferences. This information is potentially sold to developers to create new popular games or target ads.
10:00 PM: Before falling asleep, I watched Stranger Things on Netflix for the first time. I believe that due to the data collected by Netflix it was pushed by the algorithm to be on the top of my page. From my research this data includes, watch time, pauses, and even genre preferences. This is used via their policy for “Behavioral Advertising” which I disabled in the privacy settings.
My Reflection about my Media Usage
From evaluating my media usage on September 7th, I realized that I have many appealing interest to advertisers that are sold everyday from the platforms I used. My media use particularly centers on gaming, fitness, social connections and even traveling. While I track my own behavior and interests by disabling various privacy settings I am still concerned about the amount of data that I do share everyday. Much of the data that is recorded from my habits and is not explicitly stated that it is being recorded (besides in a ridiculously long TOS). Moreover, I do have a level of concern about unchecked data harvesting without a clear statement of consent and believe that this should be changed on a legal level. I believe that digital privacy should be everyone’s concern and that every person should have legal autonomy over their personal data.
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