How much is our online data actually worth? Researchers have estimated that users who opt-out of sharing their browsing data are worth about 60 per cent less to advertisers on Facebook. Based on Facebook’s revenue in 2019, this implies that data on the behaviour of the average American user is worth at least $48 per year. Meanwhile, Google reportedly paid Apple $12bn to be the default iPhone search engine for 2019. With an estimated one billion iPhones in use, this would suggest Google value our search activity at about $12 per device.[84]
Given that our attention is so valuable, tech companies have a big incentive to keep us online. The more time we spend using their products, the more information they can collect, and the better they can tailor their content and adverts. Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, has previously spoken about the mindset of those who’d built early social media applications. ‘That thought process was all about: “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?”’ he said in 2016.[85] Other companies have since followed suit. ‘We’re competing with sleep,’ joked Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in 2017.[86]
One way to keep us hooked on an app is through design. Tristan Harris, who specialises in the ethics of design, has compared the process to a magic trick. He notes that businesses will often try and guide our choices towards a specific outcome. ‘Magicians do the same thing,’ he once wrote. ‘You make it easier for a spectator to pick the thing you want them to pick, and harder to pick the thing you don’t.’[87] Magic tricks work by controlling our perception of the world; user interfaces can do the same.
Notifications are a particularly powerful way of keeping us engaged. The average iPhone user unlocks their phone over eighty times a day.[88] According to Harris, this behaviour is similar to the psychological effects of gambling addiction: ‘When we pull our phone out of our pocket, we’re playing a slot machine to see what notifications we got,’ he suggested. Casinos capture players’ attention by including payoffs that are infrequent and highly variable. Sometimes people get a reward; sometimes they get nothing. In many apps, the sender can also see if we’ve read their message, which encourages us to respond quicker. The more we interact with the app, the more we need to keep interacting. ‘It’s a social-validation feedback loop,’ as Sean Parker put it. ‘It’s exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.’[89]
There are several other design features that keep us viewing and sharing content. In 2010, Facebook introduced ‘infinite scrolling’, removing the distraction of having to change page. Unlimited content is now common on most social media feeds; since 2015, YouTube has automatically played another video after the current one ends. Social media design is also centred on sharing; it’s difficult for us to post content without seeing what others are up to.
Although not all features were originally intended to be so addictive, people are increasingly aware of how apps can influence their behaviour.[90] Even developers have become cautious of their own inventions. Justin Rosenstein and Leah Pearlman were part of the team that introduced Facebook’s ‘like’ button. In recent years, both have reportedly tried to escape the allure of notifications. Rosenstein had his assistant put parental controls on his phone; Pearlman, who later became an illustrator, hired a social media manager to look after her Facebook page.[91]
As well as encouraging interactions, design can also hinder them. WeChat, China’s vastly popular social media app, had over a billion active users in 2019. The app brings together a wide range of services: users can shop, pay bills and book travel, as well as sending messages to each other. People can also share ‘Moments’ (i.e. images or media) with their friends, much like the Facebook News Feed. Unlike Facebook, however, WeChat users can only ever see their friends’ comments on posts.[92] This means that if you have two friends who aren’t friends with each other, they can’t see everything that’s been said. This changes the nature of interactions. ‘It prevents what I would describe as conversation from emerging,’ Dean Eckles said. ‘Anybody who posts anything as a comment knows that it’s possible that it will be taken totally out of context, because others may see only their comment and not what happened previously in that thread.’ Facebook and Twitter have widely shared posts with thousands of public comments below. In contrast, attempts at WeChat discussions inevitably look fragmented or confused, which deters users from trying.
Chinese social media discourages collective action in several ways, including deliberate barriers created by government censorship. A few years ago, political scientist Margaret Roberts and her colleagues tried to reconstruct the process of Chinese censorship. They created new accounts, posted different types of content and tracked what got removed. As they pieced together the censorship mechanisms, they discovered that criticism of leaders or policies wasn’t blocked, but discussions of protests or rallies were. Roberts would later divide online censorship strategies into what she calls the ‘three Fs’: flooding, fear, and friction. By flooding online platforms with the opposing views, censors can drown out other messages. The threat of repercussions for rule breaking leads to fear. And removing or blocking content creates friction by slowing down access to information.[93]
On my first trip to mainland China, I remember trying to connect to WiFi when I arrived at my hotel. It took me a while to work out whether I was actually
