Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In the present context of digital culture, common discourse addressing the societal impacts of mobile technology and its algorithmic ancillaries tends to remain confined to the disciplines of computer science, communications, behavioural sciences and psychology (with a few exceptions). When such impacts are addressed, dialogue is limited to issues of privacy, mental health and data security, neglecting to account for the more socio-cultural dimensions of our unfolding relationship with technology. Such a relationship is presently influenced and nuanced by machine learning, used to detect patterns in the multiplicity of data generated by human subjects while interacting with mobile devices. Detection of these patterns in our data enables algorithms to establish a formulaic and essentialized interpretation of each subject’s personality, behaviour, beliefs, values and attitudes, which are then used to project individually relevant content through digital user interfaces in the form of targeted communications. In the process, the beliefs, values and attitudes held by individuals are re-presented to their self, nuanced for the purpose of stimulating affectively charged mental and embodied responses. In examining the socio-cultural dimensions of this context from the purview of the Foucault-Habermas debate, this discussion will examine how digital imprints of bias are exploited to advantage political and commercial interests while reinforcing implicit association biases. It will argue that in consequence of the interweaving of digital technologies with the banality of everyday life, Habermas’ public sphere is no longer simply being imagined, but rather, its imagining is being disciplined through collaborative cognition with our digital technologies.