Subjects of information in the age of algorithms: between hyperpredictability and uncertain experience

Abstract

Introduction: This article analyzes transformations in the configuration of informational subjects in the digital environment. The research is based on an ongoing study -interviews, focus groups, and surveys with 380 young people aged 18 to 34 in the city of Buenos Aires- aimed at exploring how an informational experience marked by hyperpredictability and, simultaneously, by elements of latent unpredictability is configured. Objective: describe the characteristics of contemporary informational subjects and to understand the dynamics that organize their relationship with information in a media ecosystem shaped by platforms and algorithms. Methodology: qualitative and quantitative approaches are combined through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and a survey conducted with 380 young people aged 18 to 34 in the city of Buenos Aires. Results: three features of the hyperpredictable subject are identified: prompt verifiability, the over-explanation of events, and atemporal immediacy. These features are articulated within an information market shaped by logics of attention, surveillance, and assisted freedom. Discussion: the results reveal the emergence of experiences of distrust, anxiety, and humor that introduce margins of ambiguity in the relationship with information and complicate purely predictive models of informational behavior. Conclusions: the article proposes understanding contemporary informational subjects as the result of a constant oscillation between algorithmic control and uncertainty, and argues for the need to articulate qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to grasp this complexity. It also highlights the role of the researcher as a critical cartographer of a transforming landscape in which questioning and uncertainty constitute central tools for the production of knowledge.