Wait, how do they know that?
Every time I use my computer, I obviously come across many adds. Since it is the holiday season, I am also window shopping a lot to see potential gifts to buy for my numerous family members. This can become me just searching for the same thing a million times and going down a rabbit hole of things my family might like. Eventually I will give up close the tabs and shut my computer down. The next time I go on my computer I am not so surprised at all of the ads of the exact products I was just searching up. I think it is totally crazy how the internet search engines we use track every single thing we click, tap, and type. What is even more trippy is that they sell this information to other companies or websites so they can strategically place ads formed to what they know we like or want. Even if we don't buy the product straight from the ad, just a gentle reminder of seeing whatever we want, engraves even deeper our "need" for materialistic things.
I totally agree that the power that advertisers have to literally follow you around is super crazy and not fun at all. I think that it is really creepy and also annoying in a way because the advertisers know specifically what I am looking for and on every single website I am on, there's that shoe I was online shopping for an hour ago. I think that companies have used this method to make us want to buy the certain products we want through showing us our desired item at our most vulnerable times. From experience when I see those ads, it makes me feel as if I might as well just buy that item right now because if I don't I'll see those ads for the next few months. Just thinking about how advertisers are able to advertise the exact product we want really just shows how far advertising methods have developed.
ReplyDeleteI agree that advertisers know exactly how to target my interests basing it off of my recent searches. In addition, I have begun to think, along with others, that the internet and specific sites may be listening to us as well as using our search histories. I have often had conversations with people aloud without typing anything into a computer or phone and a couple days later, an ad will pop up for exactly what I was talking about. I've seen research on this, too. A couple that does not own a cat or any other pet and would have no need for cat food, staged random conversations about their need for cat food over the period of a day. A couple days later, an ad came up for cat food on both their phones. It is wild to me that out media can listen to us and translate what we say into advertisements suited to our specific needs.
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