Reality mining of digital breadcrumbs enables second-by-second models of group behavior

Evidence

For the first time in history, the majority of humanity is linked.… As a consequence, our mobile wireless infrastructure can be “reality mined” in order to… monitor our environments, and plan the development of our society.… Reality mining of the “digital breadcrumbs” left behind as we go about our daily lives offers potential for creating remarkable, second-by-second models of group dynamics and reactions over extended periods of time.… In short, we now have the capacity to collect and analyze data about people with a breadth and depth that was previously inconceivable. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1362

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the term ‘reality mining,’ a key concept in the surveillance-capitalism lexicon, grounded in the technical claim of unprecedented data breadth.
• XREF: connects to: Pentland frames ubiquitous behavioral data as a radically new mode of social self-knowledge — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1374; Unstructured behavioral signals can reconstruct detailed narratives about each user — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 209; Pentland’s sociometer turned social interaction into instrumentable, predictively modelable data — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1339

Broader Connections

• Pentland frames ubiquitous behavioral data as a radically new mode of social self-knowledge #expands (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1374
• Pentland’s sociometer turned social interaction into instrumentable, predictively modelable data #expands (0.92) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1339
• Unstructured behavioral signals can reconstruct detailed narratives about each user #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 209