Total measurement is sold through the lure of seamless personal convenience

Evidence

For society, the hope is that we can use this new in-depth understanding of individual behavior to increase the efficiency and responsiveness of industries and governments. For individuals, the attraction is the possibility of a world where everything is arranged for your convenience—your health checkup is magically scheduled just as you begin to get sick, the bus comes just as you get to the bus stop, and there is never a line of waiting people at city hall. As these new abilities become refined by the use of more sophisticated statistical models and sensor capabilities, we could well see the creation of a quantitative, predictive science of human organizations and human society. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1367

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The promise of ‘everything arranged for your convenience’ parallels the Grafting & Growth essay’s theme of infrastructure invisibly serving people.
• CANDY: The bus-arrives-when-you-do and never-waiting-at-city-hall promises are quotable ur-examples of friction-free convenience rhetoric.
• XREF: connects to: Routine bodily self-monitoring has become a competitive, profit-generating infrastructure — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 25; Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 121; Metrics become socially interpreted measures of personal self-worth — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 217 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. #expands (0.88) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 121
• Attention only becomes convertible capital through homogenizing measurement devices #corroborates (0.82) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 165
• Measuring attention as data enables treating it as a monetizable resource #expands (0.80)
• Metrics become socially interpreted measures of personal self-worth #qualifies (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 217