从歌单到外卖订单,App的年度报告正在变为一场“公开处刑”吗?

The holidays are a time for reflection, but lately I’ve been overthinking things: Over the past few weeks, I’ve listened to a playlist of my top songs via Spotify Wrapped, revisited my summer-long job hunt on LinkedIn’s Year in Review, and ruminated on my crossword abilities with The New York Times’ Year in Games feature.

假期本是反思的时刻，但最近我有点想太多了：过去几周，我通过 Spotify 年度回顾听了自己的年度热门歌曲歌单，在领英的 “年度回顾” 里重温了自己一整个夏天的求职经历，还借着《纽约时报》的 “年度游戏” 功能，琢磨了自己的填字游戏水平。

In 2025, there seem to be more of these data interpolators than ever: The event-planning service Partiful invites users to an After Party, revealing the people they socialized with the most this year.

2025 年，这类 “数据总结工具” 似乎比以往更多了：活动策划平台 Partiful 会邀请用户参加 “后续派对”，曝光他们今年社交最多的人；

Your Year With ChatGPT lets us see how many em dashes we exchanged with AI. There’s also PlayStation’s Wrap-Up, Goodreads’ Year in Books, and Years in Review for Duolingo, Letterboxd, and Oura.

“你的 ChatGPT 年度回顾” 能显示我们和 AI 聊了多少长破折号；还有 PlayStation 的年度总结、Goodreads 的 “年度书籍”，以及多邻国、Letterboxd（影评平台）、Oura（智能手环）的年度回顾。

Even Untappd, a social network for beer enthusiasts, has a year-end wrap-up called Recappd.

就连啤酒爱好者社交平台 Untappd，都推出了叫 Recappd 的年终总结功能。

The wrap-up tradition has been around for a number of years, but what was once a cheeky bit of marketing has now expanded into a full-blown season of its own.

年终总结的传统已经存在好几年了，但曾经只是个俏皮的营销手段，如今已经演变成了一场完整的 “总结季”。

In today’s internet landscape, personalization is the coin of the realm: Search results, on-site advertisements, and social feeds are all tailored to users’ precise desires based on their behaviors.

在当下的互联网环境里，“个性化” 就是通行货币：搜索结果、站内广告、社交动态，全是根据用户行为精准定制的。

During recap season, those behaviors themselves become the product.

到了总结季，这些行为本身就成了商品。

Data typically reserved for in-house analytics teams are suddenly interesting in and of themselves — and reviewing those data can be fun, until we’re reminded just how much we’re tracked, and just how valuable our data are to companies’ bottom line.

原本只供内部分析团队用的数据，突然变得自带看点 —— 复盘这些数据本是件乐事，直到我们猛然意识到自己被追踪得有多紧，以及我们的数据对企业盈利有多重要。

The year-end recaps that seem to work best are the ones that give people something they actually want.

效果最好的年终总结，是那些能给用户真正想要的东西的。

In the case of Spotify Wrapped, the promotional blitz is productive both for the company collecting the data and for the user.

以 Spotify 年度回顾为例，这场宣传攻势对收集数据的企业和用户来说是双赢的。

Wrapped is a glorified ad for Spotify’s ability to make money off its users’ data, but it also comes with a host of features that are actually useful.

年度回顾本质上是 Spotify 的 “高级广告”，彰显其靠用户数据赚钱的能力，但它也附带了不少实用功能。

I look forward to Spotify Wrapped because it leaves me with a playlist full of my favorite songs of the year and lets me compare my songs against my friends’.

我期待 Spotify 年度回顾，是因为它会给我生成年度最爱歌曲的歌单，还能让我和朋友比拼各自的歌单。

But as more companies scramble to turn wonky user data into something slick and shareable, the utility and the joy get harder to see: Do we really need a readout of the Metro stops that our friends are visiting most frequently?

但随着越来越多企业忙着把零散的用户数据包装成精致的分享内容，实用价值和乐趣反而越来越淡：我们真的需要一份 “朋友最常去的地铁站点” 报告吗？

What it does reveal isn’t always enjoyable, either.

这些总结暴露的内容也不总是让人愉快。

I consider each order placed on a food-delivery app to be a personal failing on my part, but Uber Eats’ “YOUBER” attempts to celebrate those late-night moments of laziness and capitulation.

我觉得在外卖平台下的每一笔订单都是自己的 “个人失败”，但 Uber Eats 的 “你的外卖年度” 却想把那些深夜犯懒、向食欲妥协的时刻包装成值得庆祝的事。

At their best, personalized year-end recaps find the fun in data.

做得好的个性化年终总结，能从数据里挖出趣味。

But the story of a meal — even a memorable one shared with friends — can’t be told in flat numbers.

可一顿饭的故事 —— 哪怕是和朋友共享的难忘一餐 —— 是没法用冷冰冰的数字讲清楚的。

And it’s a good thing that Strava’s Year in Sport is reserved for paying subscribers, since I know I’d bristle when confronted with all of the days I failed to run this year.

Strava（运动追踪平台）的 “年度运动” 只对付费用户开放，这倒是件好事，因为我知道，要是看到自己今年有多少天没跑步的数据，肯定会尴尬到炸毛。

Spotify says that “your Wrapped is a reflection of you: unparalleled and unmistakably personal.”

Spotify 说 “你的年度回顾是你的写照：独一无二、极具个人色彩”。

But the idea that such limited data can offer that level of access is a convenient fiction.

但 “这么有限的数据能展现出深度自我” 的说法，不过是个方便的幌子。

These features can also reflect what users want to be.

这些功能也能反映用户 “想成为的样子”。

As recaps have become a yearly expectation, some people have found ways to alter their digital footprints, cherry-picking the kinds of media (books on Goodreads, movies on Letterboxd, music on Spotify) that might reflect refinement and taste when it comes time to share.

随着年终总结成了年度期待，有些人开始刻意修改自己的数字足迹 —— 精心挑选 Goodreads 上的书、Letterboxd 上的电影、Spotify 里的音乐，等分享的时候能显得自己品味更高级。

“Just as the machine tailors itself to us, we try to tailor ourselves to it,” my colleague Nancy Walecki wrote in a 2023 reflection on Spotify Wrapped.

“机器在适配我们，我们也在试着适配机器。” 我的同事南希・瓦莱茨基在 2023 年一篇关于 Spotify 年度回顾的评论里写道。

Enthusiasts like to debate when exactly Spotify stops tracking user behavior, and which weeks out of the year might not count for the following year’s edition.

爱好者们总爱争论：Spotify 到底什么时候停止追踪用户行为？一年里哪些周的数据不会算进下一年的总结？

This year, Spotify tracked listening habits from January to mid-November, which means it’s entirely possible that mid-November through December is unsurveilled time.

今年，Spotify 只追踪了 1 月到 11 月中旬的听歌习惯，这意味着 11 月中旬到 12 月可能是 “无监控期”。

“Safe months to listen to your guilty pleasures,” a Mashable article once called this indeterminate period.

Mashable（科技媒体）的一篇文章曾把这段不确定的时间称为 “放心听的安全月”。（ guilty pleasures：指自己喜欢但不好意思承认的内容）

In 2025, surveillance is no revelation.

2025 年，“被监控” 已经不是什么新鲜事了。

We choose to surrender our valuable data to certain apps because we accept that the products are worth it.

我们自愿把宝贵的数据交给某些应用，因为我们觉得这些产品值得。

And, in many cases, when those annual recaps arrive, we welcome them.

而且很多时候，当年终总结出来时，我们是欢迎它们的。

But it helps when companies give us something to make those concessions a little easier to tolerate. Hence the bargain I make with Spotify each year.

但如果企业能给我们点 “甜头”，让这些妥协更容易接受些，会好很多。这就是我每年和 Spotify 达成的 “交易”。

Still, I relish what little chance I get to evade the watchful eyes of these data collectors.

不过，我还是很珍惜能躲开这些数据收集者监视的短暂机会。

We have another full week before the tracking for next year’s reviews kicks off — and then we’ll do it all over again.

距离明年总结的追踪开始，还有整整一周时间，之后我们又会重蹈覆辙。

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