It seems that quite a few people are upset about Facebook’s recent revelation that it manipulated the news feed algorithm for some of it users which resulted in those users seeing more positive or more negative posts. Subsequent posts by those users were then analyzed to determine if what they had been seeing in their news feed influenced their emotions. Apparently there is a lot of backlash to the apology that was posted by Adam Kramer, one of the data scientists responsible for the experiment, but since I deleted my Facebook account a couple of months ago, I am unable to follow the comments on Adam’s page. I only know what my daughter tells me.

Personally, I don’t understand why people are so upset; if they had bothered to read the terms of the agreement they consented to when they made their account in the first place, they would have known that Facebook had every right to do what it did. But who bothers to read those agreements anyway? Maybe we should, instead of being so quick to click “Agree.”

Welcome to data mining. If you haven’t figured it out by now, everything you do on the web leaves a trail of digital breadcrumbs that companies are all too eager to scoop up in order to custom-tailor services or to suggest products to consumers. Thanks to advancements in technology, this is now the world in which we live.

Frankly, I admire Adam for having the chutzpah to issue the apology; he certainly didn’t have to. After all, he was just doing his job. But, knowing Adam, it’s likely that the reason behind the apology was to start a dialogue that would parlay into continued research. You see, I’ve known Adam since he was a teenager, and that brilliant mind of his never discounted the feelings of others.

The serendipity of how certain people come into our lives fascinates me. Like my children, Adam was homeschooled, and it was at a homeschooling conference in Michigan nearly twenty years ago that our paths crossed. Adam was in my daughter’s wedding and he’s still in her life, in a cyber sort of way.

As the years have gone by, it’s been amazing to see what has come of the kids I knew that were homeschooled. Adam, in particular. After earning his undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University he went on to do graduate and doctoral work. He’s a brain, and it didn’t surprise me one bit that he got the job he did at Facebook. In fact, I imagine that his brain is more than just a little stimulated on a daily basis by the posts of more than 1.23 billion users.

For all of its benefits, social networking also has ramifications. This particular experiment was done by Facebook a couple of years ago. No telling what it’s up to now…

http://time.com/2939100/facebook-study-emotions-adam-kramer/