Social media has become a part of our everyday lives. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are allowing people from all walks of life allow users to share their thoughts, feelings and life events with others. It was only a matter of time that this ‘data’ published by users was exploited by commercial organisations.

In a recent TED talk Jennifer Golbeck told a story about how one advertisement aimed at a teenage female, informed her father that she was pregnant before she had the chance to let him know. The unnamed company had collated information regarding purchases the young female had made, analysed the data and came to the conclusion that she was pregnant, thus firing an advertisement across that had informed her father.

This is a common occurrence. Anyone who visits commercial sites on the internet notice how the advertisements from that very site then follow you around on the side of your screen even after you’ve left the website. Current technologies allow identification of your actions in order to target appropriate advertisements to you and generate income for the companies in question.

If a corporation can predict pregnancy from online activity, imagine the possibilities for enhanced medical management. Think about the amount of individuals posting their every thought and feeling on social media, if someone could develop a program to identify key words it may be possible to analyse the progression or deterioration of a condition, or inform medical services of individuals at risk. Individuals could be monitored 24/7 without having to have conscious input, it would reduce reliance on self-management and create a more efficient medical model enhancing health care and preventing negative health events.

The current medical model is unsustainable. Attention is turning towards more efficient forms of diagnosis and management. There is going to be great reliance on technology for medical management and it seems plausible that ‘Big Brother’ watching your every move will become a more prevalent reality.

But is having your every action monitored really worth more efficient management of your condition? Would you not prefer enhanced self-management? Who really owns your data?

Unfortunately such innovation opens up great opportunity for exploitation of data. Privacy is a right, and an extremely important one, if we share everything what is left to protect us? I’m as yet undecided about my feelings on intrusive monitoring such as this however I predict such technology is just round the corner, after all we can’t keep going on as we are.

Jack Barton (Researcher, Rescon Ltd)

References
www.twitter.com
www.facebook.com
www.instagram.com
www.linkedin.com

http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_golbeck_the_curly_fry_conundrum_why_social_media_likes_say_more_than_you_might_think?utm_source=facebook&source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ios-share