Google and Facebook are leading the development of “personalization”―the process through which the type of information offered is adjusted to users’ demands. The way that personalization shapes identity is still becoming clear―especially because most of us spend more time consuming broadcast media than personalized content streams on the Internet. But by looking at how those two major players on the web conceive of identity, it’s becoming possible to predict what these changes might look like. Personalization requires a theory of what makes a person―of what bits of data are most important to ascertain whom someone is, and the two web giants have quite different ways of approaching the problem.
Google’s personalization system relies heavily on web history and what you click on to [1](1. infer 2. defer 3. prefer) what you like and dislike. These clicks often happen in an entirely private context: The assumption is that searches for “intestinal gas” and celebrity gossip are between you and your browser. You might behave differently if you thought other people were going to see your searches. But its that behavior that determines what content you see in Google News, what ads Google displays that determines, in other words, Googles theory of you.
The basis for Facebooks personalization is entirely different. [2](1. Unless 2. While 3. Since) Facebook undoubtedly tracks clicks, its primary way of thinking about your identity is to look at what you share and with whom you interact. That’s a whole different kettle of data from Google’s: There are plenty of odd and embarrassing things we click on that we’d be [3](1. ready 2. reluctant . flattered) to share with all of our friends in a status update. And the reverse is true, too. I’ll admit to sometimes sharing links I’ve barely read―the long investigative piece on the reconstruction of Haiti, the bold political headline―because I like the way it makes me [4](1. turn 2. Stick 3. look) to others. The Google self and the Facebook self, in other words, are radically different people.
There’s a big difference between “you are what you click “and “you are what you share.”
Both ways of thinking have their benefits and drawbacks. With Google’s click-based self, the gay teenager who hasn’t [5](1. run up 2. come out .3 looked up) to his parents can still get a personalized Google News feed with pieces from the broader gay community that affirm that he’s not alone. But at the same time, a self built on clicks will tend to draw us even more toward the items we’re [6]1, predisposed 2. entitled 3. embarrassed) to look at already. Your perusal of an article on a celebrity gossip site is [7]1.filed 2. thrown 3. given) away and the next time you’re looking at the news, you are more likely to find salacious details about an actor’s infidelity on the screen.
Facebook’s share-based self is more aspirational: Facebook takes you more at your word, presenting you as you’d like to be seen by others. Your Facebook self is more of a performance, less of a metaphorical black box, and ultimately it may be more prosocial than the bundle of signals Google tracks. But the Facebook approach has its downsides as well―to the extent that Facebook draws on the more public self, it necessarily has [8](1. no rooms 2. less room 3. a tiny room) for private interests and concerns. The same closeted gay teenager’s information environment on Facebook remains [9](1 inhuman 2, incomplete . indifferent).
Both are pretty poor representations of who we are, in part because there is no one set of data that substantively describes who we are. “Information about our property, our professions, our purchases, our finances, and our medical history does not tell the whole story,” writes privacy expert Daniel Solove. “We are more than the bits of data we [10](1. put 2. take 3. give off as we go about our lives.”
Robotics engineers frequently run [11](1. down 2. into 3. over) problems when attempting to create realistic reflections of life.
There can actually be an uncomfortable sense of disconnect that one feels when looking at imperfectly animated humans or plastic-looking, human-faced robots―the so-called “uncanny valley.” The problem is that the data do not necessarily represent reality. We can say that Facebook and Google are in fact experiencing similar problems in their efforts to capture individual personalities. With Facebook, users are actually creating a mask to show the world, but at the moment it is an imperfect and unconvincing one.
With the Google paradigm, the personality sketch created of users is also flawed, albeit differently. This is due to misinterpreting aspects of a given customer’s online behavior as being indicative of his or her identity. It could be said that rather than a good representation of self, right now the Internet can only provide a shoddy doppelganger.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, claims that we have “one identity”, a claim that has become the foundation of the Facebook personalization model.
Psychologists, however, warn us against this misconception. We tend to explain people’s behavior in terms of their unchanging inner traits rather than the situations in which they’re placed. Even in situations where the context clearly plays a major role, we find it hard to separate [12](1. how 2. when 3.where) someone behaves from who she is.
Our personalities are fluid. Someone who’s gregarious and outgoing when happy may be introverted when [13](1. stressed 2. excited 3.joyful). We may think that our personalities are set, and our behaviors are predictable, but this is not necessarily the case. Even people who think themselves to be gentle and mild-mannered may act brutally under certain conditions. This was demonstrated by psychologist Stanley Milgram in his oft-cited experiment at Yale in the 1960s where he got decent ordinary people to apparently electrocute other subjects upon the instruction of a researcher in a white lab coat, a symbol of authority.
There is a reason that we act this way: The personality traits that serve us well when we’re at dinner with our family might get [14](1. on 2. along 3. in) the way when we’re in a dispute with a passenger on the train or trying to finish a report at work. The [15](1. platitude 2. plasticity . profusion) of the self allows for social situations that would be impossible or intolerable if we always behaved exactly the same way. Advertisers have understood this phenomenon for a long time. It’s no accident that you don’t hear many beer ads as you’re driving to work in the morning.
People have different needs and aspirations at eight a.m. than they do at eight p.m. [16](1. By contrast 2. On the contrary 3. By the same token), billboards in the nightlife district promote different products than billboards in the residential neighborhoods the same partiers go home to.
The one-identity problem illustrates one of the dangers of [17](1. running 2. turning 3. getting) over your most personal details to companies who have a skewed view of what identity is.
And when we’re aware that everything we do enters a permanent, pervasive online record, another problem emerges: The knowledge that what we do affects what we see and how companies see us can create a chilling effect. Genetic privacy expert Mark Rothstein describes how lax regulations around genetic data can actually reduce the number of people willing to be tested for certain diseases: If you might be discriminated against or denied insurance for having a gene linked to Parkinson’s disease, it’s not unreasonable just to skip the test and the troubling knowledge that might result.
However, the one-identity problem isn’t a fundamental flaw. It’s more of a [18] (1. bug 2. bit 3. virus): Because Facebook thinks you have one identity and you don’t, it will do a worse job of personalizing your information environment. As a friend of mine told me, “We’re so far away from the nuances of what it means to be human, as reflected in the nuances of the technology.”
People don’t have a single, tidy identity in all contexts, and every [19] (1. increasing 2. dropping 3.passing) fancy is not demonstrative of some core desire or interest. Personalization will undoubtedly get better at sensing context, and, in fact, people in the field are working on it. They might even be able to better balance long-term and short-term interests. But when they do―when they are able to accurately [20](1. dial 2. gauge 3. switch) the workings of your psyche―things will get even more uncomfortable.
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