Göran Bolin 100 nent of society’ (BRIGHENTI, 2018, p. 25). In this environment increasingly many domains have become measurable through social networking media, constantly reminding media users of their metric status when it comes to amounts of followers, friends, contacts, and notifications, and constantly prompt- ing media users to respond to metric triggers. It is well estab- lished in the sociology of measurement that people, as well as institutions, react and change behaviour when being measured (ESPELAND; SAUDER, 2007), and following from processes of metrification, it has been suggested a shift in the attitudes and mindsets of media users where the algorithmic principles of data capture on the internet and the metrics associated with social networking sites would produce a ‘big data mindset’ (VAN DIJCK, 2014), or a ‘metricated mindset’ (BOLIN; ANDER- SSON; SCHWARZ, 2015). A metricated mindset would suggest an increased inclination to quantify human relations, knowledge, and friendships, that is, social life as such, and such argu- ments have been developed theoretically recently (e.g. GROSS- ER, 2014; VAN DIJCK, 2013), but have not yet been systematically tested empirically for social media. The transformative nature of increased metrification would presumably produce a certain type of disposition to act in relation to others and to the surrounding world, revealing itself in ways of evaluating social actions and relations. Now, if metrics are so naturalised in our everyday life that they appear as ‘an air that we breathe’, we need method- ological tools to capture their impact. How can we research the increasingly metrified and algorithmically steered media landscape? And how can we research the perceptions of metrics, and how metrics are felt by media users? The aim of this paper is to suggest an approach for responding to these questions and suggest a model for analysing metrics in everyday, routinised life. Furthermore, the paper will provide some examples on how one can use manipulated software that removes metrics from the users’ interface in order to sensitise users to the functions of metrics. In the next section, we will give a more detailed back- ground to the rise of metrics and audience measurement, and how metrics have been used for producing value in the wider sense of the word.
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