I was at a talk given by Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, and he gave a fair analogy on the problems of this. In the past people “invited” a trusted source into your house to give you the news, for example the BBC. This relied on there being a fair degree of journalistic standards etc., but you were essentially able to turn on and off this tap of news and information and it only came from a trusted source. Contrast that to now where we are bombarded at all times with the 24 hour news cycle, presented to you by literally anyone. Pair this with the biggest data mining operation and you’ve now got a bombardment of media, generally hyper targeted towards you and your interests, along with the associated advertising etc. Even potentially more harmful is the shadow advertising we now get, where you’re unaware that your behaviour is being manipulated and being advertised to.