Group items tagged

"In the lead-up to tonight's film, Generation Like, we've been asking our Facebook and Twitter communities to tell us why you use social and how it's affecting your lives. Hundreds of you have told us about the choices you're making - and why you're making them. We've asked a few writers who've thought a lot about social media to read your comments and reflect on them in the context of tonight's film. We also want to hear from you! Share your reactions below in the comments. Does Social Media Empower or Exploit? Douglas Rushkoff, Generation Like correspondent Douglas Rushkoff: Does Social Media Empower or Exploit? Generation Like correspondent Douglas Rushkoff is the author, most recently, of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, as well a dozen other books on media, technology and culture. He was correspondent on three previous FRONTLINE films, The Merchants of Cool (2001), The Persuaders (2004), and Digital Nation (2010). Follow him on Twitter @Rushkoff. In the lead-up to Generation Like, FRONTLINE has been asking questions about social media on social media. As I wade through the many responses, I am reminded of my own questions about these platforms when I began making this documentary. Like me, many of you are thrilled by the opportunity for connection and self-expression that social media offer.   Calum James Facebook is the best communication tool ever created. February 12 at 7:02pm   But many of you also share a sense of skepticism about what it is that social media - and the companies behind them - ask from us in return.   We all know this has something to do with our data. We create consumer profiles for the unseen companies on the other side of the screen, and enter into a relationship with them that isn't entirely clear. "Who is doing what for whom, and to what end?" The need to understand this better - and what it means for the young people using this stuff - is what set us on our journey to explor

"Today, companies reach consumers with targeted marketing - placing ads based on your web searches, the content of your Gmail messages, or your purchasing history. Every time you log into a site like Amazon, the recommendations you see are based not only on your purchase history and items you've viewed, but also an algorithm that factors in the preferences of people with similar buying histories. Companies also use retargeting: blanketing the ad space with images of products you've viewed as you move on to browse other sites. But as the volumes of data we add to the web keeps multiplying - one estimate projects it will grow 300 times by 2020 - it becomes more difficult for marketers to figure out who to target with which ads and when. So companies are turning to computer models that analyze these massive pools of information to make inferences about your health, personality traits, and even mood in real time, in order to help them predict, and ultimately influence, your next purchase."

"danah boyd is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, and a research assistant professor in media, culture and communication at New York University. She told FRONTLINE that kids today aren't much different than they were decades ago; it's the world around them that's changed. "Young people are participating in the attention economy just like adults are. They're part of it; they're growing up with it; it's what they see all around them," she said. "