A nuanced account from a user perspective of what it's like to live in
a datafied world.
We live in a media-saturated society that increasingly transforms our
experiences, relations, and identities into data others can analyze and
monetize. Algorithms are key to this process, surveilling our most
mundane practices, and to many, their control over our lives seems
absolute. In Living with Algorithms, Ignacio Siles critically
challenges this view by surveying user dynamics in the global south
across three algorithmic platforms--Netflix, Spotify, and TikTok--and
finds, surprisingly, a more balanced relationship.
Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence that privileges the user over
the corporate, Siles examines the personal relationships that have
formed between users and algorithms as Latin Americans have integrated
these systems into the structures of everyday life, enacted them
ritually, participated in public with and through them, and thwarted
them. Sometimes users follow algorithms, Siles finds, and sometimes
users resist them. At times, users do both. Agency lies in the
navigation of the spaces in-between.
By analyzing what we do with algorithms rather than what algorithms do
to us, Living with Algorithms clarifies the debate over the future of
datafication and whether we have a say in its development. Concentrating
on an understudied region of the global south, the book provides a new
perspective on the commonalities and differences among users within a
global ecology of technologies.
