Each social media platform is actively striving to innovate to maintain user engagement and satisfaction. In this forum, we shall engage in an academic discourse on “big data”. The concept of big data involves the collection of user information for the purpose of conducting in-depth analysis. In order to assess the individual interests of users and identify potential favorite films or products. The film titled “The Social Dilemma” was released by Netflix in August 2020. The material shown in the video elicits a sense of horror. Indeed, it is a prevailing reality that every platform diligently monitors user activities with the explicit purpose of amassing sufficient data to exploit for audience-based gains.

Jeff Orlowski, director of “The Social Dilemma,” and Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, discuss the documentary that explores how companies are using psychology to influence users. “My biggest hope personally is that the film creates a new shared reality about the breakdown of our shared reality,” Harris said. They mentioned in press interviews that almost every social media platform has user profiles. This information comes from each user’s browsing data, viewing time, and interaction with content (likes, comments, etc.). So how well can this data allow social media platforms to predict you? Tristan Harris testifies for the US Senate on “Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Persuasive Technology on Internet Platforms.” They can predict your personality, your mood, your relationships, and even a lot of things you don’t know based on this information. Know the information. These are not accidental. Analyzing user data and predicting user behavior are the business modules of these social media platforms. Their purpose is to attract more users’ attention. Social media companies are actively engaged in reforming and innovating their goods to enhance their competitiveness. The development of various platforms is highly focused, with a concerted effort to highlight their unique features in order to keep consumers.

According to my own experience and observation, even different forms of social media are undergoing positive changes in the hope of gaining more users. For example, I often follow a car blogger who often uploads car introductions that last 10 to 20 minutes on the YouTube platform. However, I found that on TikTok, the same blogger shortened the entire video duration by 3 to 5 minutes. This is because each social media platform has different characteristics and positioning. People have the impression that YouTube is for watching higher-quality videos or programs. TikTok’s positioning is short videos. But let’s look at these two platforms now. YouTube is strongly recommending its own YouTube short in the hope of seizing the short video market. TikTok has begun to encourage users to post longer videos. And their purpose in the final analysis is to grab more users. It is also mentioned in the movie “The Social Dilemma” that we, the users of these social media software, are also products to them.

sample of YouTube shorts

From Yuxiao Miao