An End-of-Decade Look at the Metrification of Everything
If what gets measured gets managed, how is our ‘data-driven’ society managing us?
This morning, as all mornings, I opened Twitter, Linkedin, and Medium. I know I’ve been in a writing slump on Medium because I only had nine notifications this morning. I probably haven’t been doing enough social media marketing either: only three notifications on Twitter. On LinkedIn I had eight notifications, but somehow none of them were actually related to me. Maybe LinkedIn is trying to tell me something. Duolingo is definitely trying to tell me something: I broke my language learning streak.
Last week, while traveling, I took five Lyfts and provided 25 stars. Some say I’m too generous, but unless something goes seriously wrong during the drive I give five-out-of-five. I’m not about to put someone’s livelihood at risk because I don’t like their music or because they’re not an effusive conversationalist. I also gave surveys to 15 students via Google Forms last week. Their average satisfaction with my class was evidently 3.9 / 4. I wonder if the students treat my survey the same way I treat Lyft drivers, but I’m grateful for the ego boost either way. I also wonder if Google learned as much about my students as I did: Maybe they’ll be served an ad for a competitor’s computer science…
