Computers are making people easier to use

If you're on Facebook or Twitter you are an algorithm, an equation to help advertisers extract your facts Jack. You're in an unpaid focus group used to sharpen the aim of our commercial thought police. You're also a sitting duck for hackers to steal your credit card information and passwords. The inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, warns of the ingenious filter bubbles and centralized corporate control that is quickly abolishing your privacy. But that's only the menace of the marketing department, love is still off limits isn't it? Or is it? Eharmony, Match and all the other electronic yentas have their own tricks to shape and seduce you for profit. Forget poetry: “How do I love thee, let me count the ways”. Now it's let me count the guys. Shakespeare wrote: “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better”. But what does he know? Welcome to the bliss of megadata, data breach, wire taps and the NSA. Don't say Orwell didn't warn you. In a comic panel two kids are looking at an iPad and one says: “I know what a face is but what's a book?”