During our little weekly discussions at EdTechWeekly , we've joked a fair amount about Google (Big Brother) gathering up all of our personal data to take over the world. Today, I ran across a new "feature" (?) of Google Reader that displayed my recent blog reading habits. While it provided me with several moments of shock and awe (I read HOW MANY blog posts in the last 30 days?), it also did a good job of illustrating how Big Brother can (and does) gather, track and log our online habits. Did I get a bit of a sick knot in my stomach after seeing the data they collected? Yep. Will it change how I use Google products? Nope.
Here is a snippet of some of the data they captured about me this past month:
1) My total blog viewing habit over the past 30 days (maybe I do need blog aggregator rehab – especially when you consider that this time period fell over major holidays and vacation when I was "off the grid"):
2) My viewing habit by day of the week – apparently blogs get me over hump day:
3) My viewing habit by time of day – and I thought I read blogs with my morning coffee – guess not!
4) … and finally, my most read blogs – freaky …
