A few recent news stories have uncovered behavior by websites that shock and worry some people.<\/p>\n
First of all, we all learned that Facebook allowed researchers to mess with people, I mean \u201ctweak the algorithm,\u201d to learn how people reacted when they saw predominantly happy or sad news in their news feed.<\/p>\n
Then I heard about the dating website OkCupid, which matched up people for dates even though the pairs were incompatible. Once again, they said they just wanted to mess with people for fun, I mean they said they wanted to see if the expectation of a good match outweighed the reality of the situation.<\/p>\n
I wish I could tell you the results, but I really didn\u2019t care enough to do more than pay attention to the story on a surface level.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that I\u2019m an advocate for websites doing bizarre social experiments on people. I just don\u2019t see what all the big fuss is about.<\/p>\n
You see, I grew up with seven older siblings, including four older brothers. My whole life has been a social experiment.<\/p>\n
I had to explain this to someone at work recently. I had trouble opening one of the doors leading into our office area. My key went in, but I needed to jiggle the handle to get the thing to properly open.<\/p>\n
One day, I struggled with this as someone walked past the door. I asked if he had experienced the same thing. Thankfully, he had because I sometimes fall into a default mode of assuming that my brothers worked together with the people who run our building to mess with my key while setting up a webcam to enjoy my struggles.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like walking around this way. I have learned how to eliminate flinching from my life, but I have a nagging feeling in the back of my head much of the time that someone is just toying with me.<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t usually manifest itself in imagining elaborate plots involving my workplace, but it does mean I can jump a little higher than the average person when I get engrossed in a task and someone comes up behind me.<\/p>\n
In essence, I sometimes live with the specter of a Wet Willie hovering over my head.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I can\u2019t get too worried if Facebook makes it so some people see a preponderance of bad news in their news feed just to see if that person posts negative items or positive items as a result.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I don\u2019t feel a ton of sympathy for an OkCupid user who hates sports, but accepted a date from someone who plans their entire social calendar around ESPN\u2019s broadcast schedule.<\/p>\n
Those folks can probably move on with their life. They don\u2019t have to scramble for the furthest back seat in any vehicle because that guarantees that they won\u2019t get fish-hooked.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the kind of invasion of privacy that really impacts your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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