By this writing I want to explore digital privacy and consumption. My motivation for exploring this is trying to be more mindful of what I let into my life, not limited to food or air or people but products. I have always had the belief that the products we use have a considerable impact on our life but their impact is also overlooked, with the incorrect assumption that using them is a one way interaction where we extract value from them but they don’t have any affect on who we are.

I believe that this is not true, all objects in our lives have a big impact on the people we are. To demonstrate this, we can imagine a child who decides to write something new everyday. Lets imagine two scenarios, one where he uses a pen and one where he uses a pencil. This detail seems very insignificant to the act of writing itself but I believe that it is something that will define a lot.

In the scenario where he uses a pen, he will quickly find out that mistakes in his writing mean ugly patches to cover up his errors. Over time, he will start to be more mindful of what he writes, trying to fully explore a line of thought before putting it down on paper. On the other hand, if he chose the pencil, he will learn that mistakes can be erased in seconds and he has unlimited do overs. This simple fact would naturally enable him to explore more ideas on paper with no hesitation.

These small trends will significantly define his style of writing, with the first being more thoughtful and the second being more experimental. But it does not just end there, because these habits learned in one aspect of his life will apply everywhere. I believe that these two children will be completely different people.

If we give the child a computer to write on, I think we can understand that the scenario would become unrecognizably different, just by introducing a new medium to complete the same act. The point I am trying to make is that the products in your life, like cars, tools, utensils, furniture all work together to form you as a person. But nowhere is this effect as significant as seen in digital products.

A product is essentially something that helps complete a task. Usually physical products help with physical tasks and digital products help you with mental tasks. This is why their impact on you is also the highest. Currently, every aspect of our life is invaded by them so it is worth figuring out what exactly you are consuming and what effect it may have on you.

So why do we also have to talk about privacy? Its all to do with the makers of these products. A furniture manufacture may understand the concept that their products are impacting the very person their consumers are. Their natural response to this should be to make their products have a positive impact. They stand to gain most by this as people will feel good using their product. Even if they have more nefarious motives, it is hard for them to actually profit off of this effect they are producing in their consumers. Lets understand this with an example.

A furniture manufacturer conducts a study to determine the impact his products have on people. One of the findings is that a recliner from his product collection is actually inducing the trait of lethargy in the buyers. The recliner is just so damn good that whoever buys it just does not want to leave it, to the point where they are starting to see the effects of it in their lives. They are always late for work now and never help around the house. Their boss is mad at them and their marriage is in shambles now. Okay I am exaggerating a bit but you get the point.

Now what does the manufacturer do after learning this new information? They have three clear choices.

1. They can try to redesign the product so that it has a positive impact on their buyers while also providing comfort and relief to them. They can attempt to make a recliner that recharges the buyer and makes them ready to take on a new day. The idealist and product designer in me believes that this is possible. The makers of the products can take responsibility for the effect their products have on the consumers.

2. The other option is to do nothing. The product is selling well exactly because it is so good. Why should the business risk experimenting with new products it doesn’t need? The consumers are grown adults who can decide for themselves not to buy things if they don’t like them.

   Most businesses would take this approach if they get to this stage. Most businesses automatically take this approach because they do not even try to understand the deeper implications of their products on consumers.

3. The last approach they could take is actually try to maintain the negative impact the product is having and try to deepen it for profit.

Continuing with this example, the furniture company that chooses the last approach will keep making recliners that are more and more addictive and people will just keep buying them. Then, they can start to sell the data on who has purchased these recliners to companies selling caffeinated beverages and enhancement pills. These companies will handsomely renumerate the furniture company because they just got a list of people who they can easily target to sell their product.

Now these companies will show up on the poor consumers doorstep and offer the magical solution to all their problems. The company already know all about them from the furniture company that sold their data so the consumer is easily swayed by these salesmen.

This is such a glaring breach of the consumers privacy, autonomy and right to exist on so many levels. Not just the sale of data but the attempt at building behaviors in them that are directly profitable for the company.

Now there is just one problem with this example. The furniture company has no way of regularly tracking and demonstrating the effect their product is having on users. They cannot share data that is fully reliable for the other companies hoping to make a sale. They cannot regularly keep collecting data on how the consumers are using their product. They can’t check if the person who bought the recliner actually uses it or bought it for his daughter or gifted it to his neighbor.

Your mobile phone can do all these things.

Your phone or laptop can do all these things without you getting the slightest clue as these happen in the background. Imagine a rep from the furniture company sitting in your living room just taking notes on how you are using the recliner so they can sell this information later. Yep.

Big companies have made full businesses models out of this practice. Google and Meta are not tech companies, they are advertising companies at their core. They work on building efficient loops for collecting consumer data from highly addictive products, processing this data, selling this data to companies, and providing ways for those companies to easily target the most vulnerable consumers and make sales. We are on the loosing end at each stage.

This realization is why I want to explore digital consumption and privacy together. Because they are both tied together but I have not seen much discussion on them like so.

I’ll research about the products we consume for different aspects of our lives like, social networking, work, music, entertainment, payments, etc. I will break down the consumption patterns and privacy standings of each product and offer safer alternatives.