IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022 - 82

Commentary
one that allows users to switch off linking Facebook
data with other sources from outside of Facebook.
Not only it is not clear that such a possibility exists,
but also, if anyone accidentally accesses it, they are
prompted for their password, which creates an additional
barrier. Only literally inhuman (i.e., not typical
for most users) perseverance allows users to switch it
off. By using these various tactics, those rich in data
can become even richer, perpetuating the inequalities
in data control.
While this process has multiple consequences,
some of which were already mentioned here and
discussed at length in both public and scholarly
debates, I will bring up here those that are important
for the individual, psychological well-being. As
described above, individuals rely on social interaction
to construct their selves: this is an example
of symbolic interactionism that underscores the
interplay between the individual and society [29].
Negotiation of identities allows identity meanings
to change and thus the self to evolve, in response
to outside events and self-generated processes of
change. It has been theorized that loss of memory
results in living in a perpetual present [30]. The
self-reinforcing cycle of data sharing is the reverse of
that phenomenon: it is living in a perpetual accumulation
of past events-past identities-that individuals
can never shed. This affects social interaction,
creating conflicts when there should be none, for
example, by the audience coming in interaction
with past identities of an individual, bringing them
up in salience [20]. It also makes us literally stuck up
in the past, not able to evolve as individuals.
thIs has further social consequences: social
change happens when individuals change. Current
profiling is based on an amalgamate of past and present
identities for each individual, and all recommendations-from
social content, to friends, to political
or commercial ads-are geared to such profiles.
These recommendations predominantly promote
content that triggers strong emotional responses, specifically,
negative emotions as they are more likely
to keep us engaged with a given platform [26]. In
effect, the content we view and respond to underscores
our " bad " selves: we act upon those identities
that are emotive and reactant to negative and
triggering content. We are in a way forced to see our
distorted reflections-of sometimes irrelevant past
identities-and to act upon them. This might be one
82
of the reasons why social media is a distorted reflection
of society, highlighting its most self-destructive
characteristics and reinforcing them.

 References
[1] J. P. Barlow, (Jan. 20, 2016), " A declaration of the
independence of cyberspace, " Electronic Frontier
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https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
[2] J. Goldsmith and T. Wu, Who Controls the Internet?:
Illusions of a Borderless World. New York, NY, USA:
Oxford Univ. Press, 2006.
[3] S. Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The
Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of
Power. London, U.K.: Profile Books, 2019.
[4] S. Frenkel, " Key takeaways from Facebook's
whistle-blower hearing, " The New York Times,
Oct. 5, 2021. Accessed: Dec. 11, 2021. [Online].
Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/
technology/what-happened-at-facebookwhistleblower-hearing.html
[5]
S. Spiekermann, J. Grossklags, and B. Berendt,
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[7] A. Acquisti, L. Brandimarte, and G. Loewenstein,
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Jan. 2015, doi: 10.1126/science.aaa1465.
[8] C. McClain, (May 2021), " Half of Americans have
decided not to use a product or service because
of privacy concerns, " Pew Research Center.
Accessed: Jun. 16, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/14/half-ofamericans-have-decided-not-to-use-a-product-orservice-because-of-privacy-concerns/
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T. Dinev and P. Hart, " An extended privacy calculus
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doi: 10.5210/fm.v15i1.2775.
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/technology/what-happened-at-facebook-whistleblower-hearing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/technology/what-happened-at-facebook-whistleblower-hearing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/technology/what-happened-at-facebook-whistleblower-hearing.html https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/14/half-of-americans-have-decided-not-to-use-a-product-or-service-because-of-privacy-concerns/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/14/half-of-americans-have-decided-not-to-use-a-product-or-service-because-of-privacy-concerns/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/14/half-of-americans-have-decided-not-to-use-a-product-or-service-because-of-privacy-concerns/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/14/half-of-americans-have-decided-not-to-use-a-product-or-service-because-of-privacy-concerns/

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022

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