Shadow (Profiles) in the Dark (Patterns): Who Locked Your Digital Self?

Abstract

In information societies, data are power. Those who have access to data gain unprecedented opportunities to impact the behavior of other actors: individuals whose opinions and actions can be manipulated by targeted information, regulators who can be lobbied and persuaded through influencing public debate to protect data collectors, or smaller private actors, whose capacities to gather their own data can be limited through limited access to markets. In effect, the rich in data get richer and their pursuit of profit has profound implications for inequalities in modern societies, both economic as well as in social and political rights. Finding a cure to such imbalances requires understanding why data is shared in the first place, and how data producers—mostly individuals—are nudged to share. In this article, I discuss the possible psychological processes that entice digital media users to accept their role as data sources and what are the implications of massive data collection and user profiling for individual and societal well-being.