I feel like the bottom line of this book is that we are all pawns. We are the products being sold as Pariser says and for big corporations, our personal information is the most precious aspect of us. We have a relationship with organizations like Facebook and Google. These mega corporations give us something that will distract or entertain us and in return, they take our information and make money off it. Things are different than they used to be in that now, it is unclear whether companies cater to our needs or we cater to theirs. Do they need us more than we need them? In this relationship between humans and corporations, we exchange our data for their services. Everything is more convenient because we are giving something up to achieve that convenience. We talked about this in class, but does that make us prostitutes? Or does that make these companies prostitutes? They are selling their services to us and we are selling our data to them so it’s sort of an exchange.

I find it interesting to think about the relationship between us and them and who’s doing the giving and who’s doing the taking. Or is it both sides doing a little bit of both? Can we live in a world where we longer need any of the services that these companies provide for us? And would sites like Facebook and Google survive without its users? I don’t know the answer to those question, but it leads to me to think about all the ways in which our lives could change, for the better and the worse, without the personalized web. Personalization sounds like a luxury, but how inherently are our livelihoods hinged on it for our survival? Has it become so intertwined with our lives that we cannot live without it anymore? To a certain extent, we allowed these sites into our filter bubbles. I know I didn’t protest much when I signed up for all the popular social networking sites over the years and practically gave them my information on a silver platter. From Tumblr to Youtube, I willingly use these sites pretty much everyday—except Pinterest though, I never got into it ha. Anyway, this article I’ve attached talks about the idea that 75% of people are okay handing over their personal data to companies. Many also said that data exchange is actually an important and integral part of keeping society running smoothly and efficitently. Hmmmm, very interesting.
https://medium.com/@AxelUnlimited/how-concerned-are-consumers-really-when-it-comes-to-data-privacy-21c4587ddc5c

Another part I want to focus on is the a quote that stuck out to me from Pariser which says “how news is conveyed profoundly shapes what is conveyed” (55). We all try our best to not show our biases, but Pariser seems to imply that nothing we do is ever unbiased. Our filter bubbles make it harder and harder to be unbiased and that makes sense to me. I’m a creature of habit and I think big corporations know that and sort of abuse it to make money. Once we settle on a site on where to get out news, we often stick to that site for a long time so in a way, our reliance on what is familiar is then beneficial for them. And we are sort of stuck, in a way. We all have the power to say no to these services provided, but abandoning would make life a lot harder to get through and even a little boring.