Are we limiting our own boundaries and closing our worlds down?
I wanted to bring up something that has been playing on my mind when it comes to the personalised aspect of the information we now receive in terms of advertising, news, suggested purchases, etc.
The point first came to me when I went to the Stories Well Told conference run by McCann in Birmingham. When the speakers started talking about the value of being able to give people the news that they want to read because they are like stories they are already reading, suggestions for clothes they might want to buy because they have bought similar clothes before, places they might eat because they have previously eaten in those types of restaurants my first thought was – how do we broaden people’s horizons if we are giving them more of the same all the time?
I have noticed it myself – I don’t buy a paper at the weekend as regularly as I used to because I ‘get all my news via social media’. However I realised I was kinda missing out on those headlines that would catch my eye as I was flicking through the paper and I read stories in the paper that I probably wouldn't come across in my news feeds.
I have just returned from a conference in Brighton (CASE: Social Media and Community). The excellent Tracy Playle from Pickle Jar Communications was talking about examples of possible ways in the future that we could use personal data. Her example was in a Higher Education context about something simple like a campus tour. You could, theoretically, assign people to certain campus tour groups with people that have similar interests which would lead to a more engaging experience and therefore build an affinity with that particular university more easily. I was pleased when Tracy added the caveat that the question isn't whether you can do it but whether ethically it is something that we want to be doing. Surely an education institution should be broadening people’s horizons not shutting them down.
So the question is – When people personalise everything including news are we creating a world of people that live in very limited boundaries?