In the past, Nielsen provided a little form, like a date book, that you would log what you watched. That, of course, if fraught with manual entry issues:
- Times not completed
- Times completed with the wrong TV show
- People saying they watched something that they didn't
- AND when people put down that they watched something, there wasn't a place for indicating that you watched it for 5 minutes while channel surfing.
So, I can appreciate that they have some data collection issues.
Now, though, I'm scared of them. They're joining the ranks of car insurers by putting a little box attached to your TV in your home.
The box has a camera that has facial recognition technology so that you don't have to write down who watched what-
It will KNOW.
But the scary part isn't that facial recognition can gather information like age, weight, gender, glasses or not, race, and physical stature.
What's scary is to think of everything else it's spying with its little eye.
- What furniture do you have?
- Do you have other toys in the room?
- Do you have children?
- Do you watch TV while making out?
- Do you watch TV while going to sleep?
- Do you watch TV while eating? If so, WHAT are you eating? What are you drinking?
- What colors do you like
- What clothes (or absence of clothes) are you wearing?
- What type of house do you live in?
- Do you have magazines on the table in the room where you watch TV? What are the titles?
...
The list goes on.
And they will map your entire life to what you're watching (or surfing through) on the television.
And, because most Americans are so forthcoming with other details of their lives, they can have spiders (little internet programs that gather information from sites) crawl through Facebook to find out what you really think of the TV shows and why. And because you've already linked up every website that you shop on with Facebook, they'll know that, too.
Wake up and smell the mind control, people. It's getting to be quite slick.
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