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I remember an article from Lifehacker I think back in the day where the author wrote that they could arguably infer what mood their friends were in from their L

I remember an article from Lifehacker I think back in the day where the author wrote that they could arguably infer what mood their friends were in from their Last.FM scrobbles. For the uninitiated, it's just a way of tracking music you've listened to. While I don't think that's quite accurate in hindsight, I do often wonder just how many indicators there are that could be picked up and reflected back to the user, in order to see if their otherwise passive behaviour is something they might want to be aware of. A common example is usually number of screen unlocks. I even find myself opening Twitter multiple times without realising or identifying it as "Oh, this is me procrastinating"

imiric 5y ago
Tinfoil hat take: such variables already exist for all users in the backends of most major tech companies, particularly ones in the advertising business. The ultimate targeted ad is delivering it at the right time to the right person. If they can infer from your usage patterns the way you feel at any time, or better yet make you feel a certain way, then you're more likely to click on that ad and make a purchase. I'm not sure if the targeting is this aggressive yet, but in this race to extract as much value from attention it wouldn't shock me if it were. The Social Dilemma shows a sensationalized version of this, but it is concerning to think of the implications of all this data collection.