1.3 THE PROBLEM As discussed, data collection offers a wealth of personalised advertisement opportunities for businesses marketing on social media (Sigrist, 2013), however, for social networking sites to sell the certainty of a successful advertising campaign to businesses, they have to make predictions that require a lot of data (Zuboff, 2020). Computer Scientist, Jaron Lanier claims that consumer attention has become the product of the social media business model (2018) a theory that has been echoed by Firth, who states that data has “signified a change in the relationship between individuals and companies” with consumers adopting a product status (2013), and Harris, who claims that social networking sites are competing to keep consumers on their app for as long as possible, directly effecting the likes of democracy and human connections (2020). Although each source has a negative opinion on the collecting of data, this research significantly suggests an agreement amongst industry experts that surveillance capitalism has become a destructive societal issue. Dr Sophie Bowles from the Digital Wellness Collective believes the Attention Economy Model, a model that capitalises off the volunteering of consumer’s time, is a driving force in the social media business model (2020; Kane, 2019). Furthermore, Harris
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explains how apps obtain consumer attention through ‘growth hacking’, a discipline that builds psychological manipulation into technology with the goal to change consumer behaviour, an unbiased theory as Harris himself studied this field (2020). Research by W.I.R.E recognises the problem, however, makes a counter argument against data collection technologies stating that it is a fundamental factor to economic growth, quality of life and innovative thinking (2013), suggesting that data collection is vital for the future of societal growth. Rishi indicates that consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about
the collection of their digital footprint, however, further contradicts that statement by claiming that consumers do not worry about exchanging their personal information in order to reap the benefits of social media (2017). This study may suggest that consumers have a growing awareness of the collection of their data, however, as Greenfield states, are “straightforwardly trading privacy for convenience” (2017). Additionally, key players of the technology industry are continuing to emphasise the destructive effect that the use of data could have on society.