A couple of days ago I noticed that my little-used Facebook account was suddenly full of “Happy Birthday!” messages. No surprise there: it actually was my birthday (44, if you need to ask).
But what was noteworthy – and unnerving – was that these greetings came from people who had never previously known my date of birth, or, in some cases, conversed with me for years. The reason? Those cyber-gnomes at Facebook – or, more accurately, something like an algorithm created by them – had delved into my account, noted my birth date and dispatched messages to my “friends”. “FB has directed me to wish you a Happy Birthday and so I am,” one economist friend, Amar Bhide, duly wrote (although, “in a small act of defiance”, he insisted on writing “by email rather than on Facebook’s wall”).
Just a nice form of group cyber-cuddle? Or is something more creepy at work? Frankly, I am divided. Part of me loves the idea of getting “Happy Birthday” greetings – it gives me a warm glow and I like reconnecting with long-ignored friends. But the idea of an algorithm trying to “direct” my celebrations makes me wince, not least because those algorithms are trying to “direct” so much of our lives today. For evidence of this, just look at Eli Pariser’s excellent recent book The Filter Bubble, which describes how entities such as Google now routinely use algorithms to scan our internet usage, and customise our seemingly random searches, in a way that risks creating social silos and tunnel vision.