Can Personalization be a Bad Thing?

Personalization is becoming pervasive in our society today with all of the tools that have been created. This is becoming truer as we move from day to day. Just last week, I was in a conference put on by Media Bistro called #ThinkMobile. As you can deduct from the name, the conference was all about the mobile industry and where we see it headed in a couple years, in five years and in ten years.

Well one of the main topics of conversation surrounded the new Apple iPad, which was just released prior to this conference. The iPad for those of that might have been living under a rock the past two weeks is Apple's version of a tablet computer. However, instead of it behaving like a traditional computer, it actually acts more like the iphone, with all the latest applications and gadgets available.

There was a number quoted from the conference that there are now over "195,000 applications in the Apple app store." This number brings about the potential for a lot of personalization because not everyone has to download the same application, but instead can pick and choose the ones that matter to them. Now well I myself am guilty of personalization, (I currently have about a dozen plugins running to fit my needs on my browser) I am also wary because if I personalize my experience too much, I run the risk of losing out on the bigger picture.

Personalization Advantages:

• Allows for a better experience: A Personalized experience means it is tailored to the individual so their experience should be more valuable to them.
• Filters out Junk: Let's face it there is a lot of junk out there and by having a personalized experience you know you are only looking at what's important to you.

Personalization Disadvantages:

• Misses the larger picture: The personalization means the knowledge you get is only a small portion of what is going on in the world.
• Connections become harder: If the information is so personalized it will become hard to connect to one another because the information you consumed will be different than anyone else.

So to answer the title of the post, My opinion is that yes Personalization can be a bad thing because you can end up being so personalized that you miss out on the larger picture and could miss an opportunity, but more importantly could miss out on knowledge that will help you advance and stay connected to the world.