Mediatized Sapiens: Communicational knowledge

The Metric Mindset: Social Life in Datafied Media Landscapes 103 terface: the number of friends or followers accounted for, likes, retweets, interactions, etc. Operational metrics are the numeri- cal information that is collected based on media user movement in social space, the history of search, and the navigational information that is collected about the user, but that is not revealed to the user while surfing the web. These are the metrics that form the basis for what type of content or advertising the user is presented with. Both types of metrics impact on and trigger behav- iour, but they do so in different ways, and with different degrees of openness in relation to the user. Naturally, also representational metrics have an opera- tional function, which means that from the perspective of those who control traffic on the platform, there is little difference – both forms of metrics can be used for profiling the user and controlling the ads, offers, etc., he or she will be targeted with, which search results will appear on top, or which friends s/he is encouraged to interact with. For the user, however, only the representational metrics appear as immediately actionable, and although users produce heuristics of how the algorithm work (BOLIN; VELKOVA, 2020), and how they privilege certain behav- iour before others, they only do so through trial and error and are less in control. Metrics thus has bearing on how people navigate not only the social web, but also how people navigate in social life more generally. When we act socially as individuals, we do so based on how we perceive the world around us, and how we un- derstand the social context in which we are. These perceptions form a specific mindset, and the ways in which our minds are set will impact our actions in social space, what possibilities we see and act on, and what options appear for us as impossible to act on. Our mindsets are thus of importance for social action. A mindset is, according to Merriams-Webster, ‘a men- tal attitude or inclination’, or a ‘fixed state of mind’. It is a spe- cific form of ‘cognitive habitat’ (PETTITT, 2013) forming our perceptions of the world, and hence has impact on our disposi- tions to act in that world according to the principle laid out in the so-called Thomas theorem, that ‘if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’ (THOMAS; THOMAS, 1928, p. 572). This means that if we perceive social relations in

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjEzNzYz