We already know how much of our data is collected and used to profile and target us.
The real question is why, knowing all this, do we keep going back for more?
Technology has delivered a world that we expect to revolve around us, our needs and preferences, and our unique personalities. Each of us willingly yields up the most intimate facets of our behaviour and interests in return for a world that’s exponentially easier to navigate. Ours is the Personalised Century, where we view ourselves primarily in terms of ‘what’ rather than ‘who’ we are – the objects of others’ recognition, rather than the subjects and authors of our own lives.
Interrogating the historical currents that have brought us here, comedian, broadcaster, mathematician and statistician, Timandra Harkness envisages a messier, riskier and less comfortable world than the one into which we’re sliding.