Digital Ethnographies and Self-Knowledge
In today's digital era, technology has the capability to categorize individuals into various groups based on their online behavior. This classification can influence, or even shape, perceived personalities and dictate the type of content delivered to them. Consequently, understanding ourselves and the mechanisms of digital platforms is crucial.
This webpage digged into how social media platforms, such as Facebook, interpret our personalities and preferences. We employed Sumpter's matrix, a blend of quantitative and qualitative methods, to investigate algorithmic identities online through an iterative approach. We were instructed to apply Sumpter's method by selecting 32 social media friends, categorizing their last 15 posts based on a predefined list of categories, and then creating 2D graphs by plotting some of these categories against each other.
Facebook's privacy settings reveal the extensive range of personal data it collects. Through this data accumulation, Facebook can discern your preferences and usage patterns.
