This writer called off her wedding, but finds it hard to escape being constantly reminded of the relationship. On This Day photo reminders, anniversary emails, recommended topics to follow – all features that were previously welcome have now made her online world an emotional minefield.
When engineers build ad retargeting platforms, they build something that will continually funnel more content for the things you’ve indicated you’re interested in. On average, that’s the correct thing to do… [b]ut these systems don’t factor in when life has been interrupted. Pinterest doesn’t know when the wedding never happens, or when the baby isn’t born. It doesn’t know you no longer need the nursery. Pinterest doesn’t even know if the vacation you created a collage for has ended. It’s not interested in your temporal experience.
So much of our software has become more than a tool. Because the majority of popular software is either ad-driven directly or indirectly, many features now serve both the software provider and you. Re-surfacing old photos as ‘memories’ is meant to have you, the user, use the app by responding to the notificaton, a notification whose timing has been chosen to maximise the probability of you tapping it.
This is no longer a simple photo organiser that you use. Both you and the software’s maker are using each other.
This is deeply uncomfortable for me, not just on principle but also because in mere weeks or months I will face an event that’s will turn many past events into painful memories, and I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it.