Goodreads and the Datafication of Art

By Sophie LeBlanc, Staff Writer Edited by Chioma Gregoire

It is part of human nature to want to document things. We naturally need to document things like appointments or transactions, but we also feel the need to document the things we love.

From medieval scribes recording daily events in manuscripts to Victorian-era scrapbooks filled with pressed flowers and letters, humans have always found ways to preserve fragments of life. Today, that need has not disappeared; it’s turned digital. Through apps, trackers, and feeds, we’ve transformed nearly everything into metrics. But does measuring everything make us appreciate anything?

Everything is data. The hours of a TV show you’ve streamed, how long you stayed on a reel about sourdough: somewhere, all of our actions are being recorded, analyzed, and sold. Research shows that self-tracking has become a core part of daily life, influencing not only behavior but also how we perceive ourselves. Some platforms explicitly package that data back to us through yearly recaps; Spotify wrapped, Strava mileage, or Goodreads Reading Challenges. 

It’s not just personal insight that comes from tracking; our behaviors are valuable to companies and platforms. Every click, scroll, or streamed song contributes to a profile that shapes the ads we see, the content recommended to us, and the products marketed toward us. What feels like self-expression or harmless documentation is, in many ways, feeding a system designed to profit from and shape our attention.

People like to be analyzed, which is why these recaps are so popular. They provide tangible, concrete evidence for the lives we live, offering reinforcement to the persona we may want to emulate. If you’re in the top 1% of Fleetwood Mac streamers, maybe that reinforces that you have timeless taste. If your top artist is a super niche, indie rock band nobody has heard of, you may feel the need to share this with your Instagram followers to display how cultured you really are. Though at the end of the day, it’s just data.

There’s a reason metrics feel satisfying. When we see a number rise, whether it’s steps walked, books read, or streams counted, our brains reward us with a small hit of dopamine, the neurotransmitter linked to pleasure and motivation. This makes tracking our lives inherently addictive, encouraging us to chase ever-higher numbers. Goal-setting becomes immediate and quantifiable: finishing a reading challenge, hitting a new mileage record, or accumulating streaks on an app provides a sense of accomplishment that feels tangible.

Do we read because we love reading or because we want people to see us as readers? Do we dress a certain way because it feels like us, or because we want people to see us a certain way? The boundary between genuine expression and performance has never been thinner. Studies on self-tracking note that people often experience tension between authentic engagement and performing for an audience.

What once was a personal connection to art becomes a public scoreboard. We are constantly aware of how we’re being perceived—and our stats help tell that story. 

That’s not to say we should all delete Goodreads and Letterboxd. But maybe the question isn’t whether we should use these platforms—it’s how we use them. Are we documenting for ourselves, or performing for others? Are we consuming to connect, or to compete? Journalistic coverage has questioned whether tracking every aspect of life actually enhances enjoyment or diminishes it.

Because there’s something quietly radical about keeping parts of your life unrecorded. About reading a book and not rating it. Watching a movie and not posting it. Letting experiences exist in your memory alone. When we stop trying to turn everything into data, into a story for others, we may finally let our lives belong to us again.

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