Firms like Facebook and Google use that data to conduct hypertargeted advertising, displaying ads that pique a person’s interests and fuel sophisticated recommendation algorithms. That software powers the “feeds” that people thumb through every day, making sure the content that pops up is most likely to keep them continuously scrolling. The companies are incentivized to keep us as addicted as possible to their platforms, since that generates more ad dollars. But the adverse effects are plentiful.
