YOU TAP YOUR phone in London, Ontario, and a dozen doors swing open at once. A show queues itself. A playlist guesses your mood. A shopping cart remembers a pair of socks you barely glanced at last Tuesday. You feel clever, because it all feels tailored. You also feel slightly haunted, because it all feels tailored.
This piece looks at how digital services steer what people across the province watch, buy, and sign up for, even when they think they are simply browsing. You will see the main mechanics, like rankings, autoplay, bundles, and reviews, plus a few numbers that show how large the shift has become. You will also get small habits that help you stay the one choosing.
Comparison culture sits at the centre of the new routine. People already use listicles for films, gyms, and phone plans, so it makes sense that casino comparison pages exist too. Casino.org even offers a Canada payouts guide aimed at identifying the highest payout casino, and it frames “payout rate” through RTP, a long run percentage used to describe expected returns over time. That sort of scoreboard thinking spills into every other corner of online life, from “best value” streaming bundles to “top rated” ear buds.
Streaming shows the shift most clearly because it lives inside a single tap. Canadian households keep moving toward streaming-only setups, rising from 23% in 2023 to 29% in 2024 in Media Technology Monitor data cited by the CRTC. That trend matters because a streaming-first household relies on app menus, rankings, and “because you watched” rails for discovery. Your choices start to look personal, yet the interface still chooses what you see first.
Design nudges sit in the small features. A University of Chicago study on autoplay found that turning autoplay off led participants to watch fewer minutes per session on average, and the paper argues that defaults shape viewing decisions. Autoplay looks like convenience, yet it also acts like a gentle hand on your shoulder saying “one more.”
Platforms also shape choice by controlling visibility. A field experiment published in Information Systems Research tested recommender systems on an online retailer and examined how recommendations steer selections, with the premise that ranking and suggestion features create causal effects on what people choose. That dynamic matters even more once a single page becomes the marketplace, the map, and the cashier.
Ontario consumers sit inside that system daily because time online stays high. CIRA’s 2024 Internet Trends Factbook reports that 47% of respondents said they spend five or more hours online per day. High time spent means high exposure to prompts, streaks, and “people also bought.” It also means small nudges compound into real spend.
How we work is changing too. Working from home changed schedules and pushed more errands through screens. Statistics Canada reports that about 20% of Canadians worked most of their hours from home in November 2023, down from the peak but still far above pre pandemic levels. A home-based day often turns entertainment, shopping, and services into quick between task taps, and those taps happen inside menus built to keep you moving.
Spending follows that pattern. Statistics Canada reported retail e-commerce at 6.1% of total retail trade in December 2024, with seasonally-adjusted online sales of $4.3 billion that month. Another Statistics Canada analysis also describes a sustained shift above pre pandemic levels, suggesting habits stuck once people learned the flow. Ontario shoppers live inside that national tide.
Delivery services show a similar story, just with dinner. Statistics Canada reports 278,000 Canadians provided delivery services through an app or platform in 2023, up 19.2% from 2022. That growth signals how demand and labour both move through the same interfaces, with surge pricing, promos, and time windows shaping what people order and when.
Here are habits that keep choice human while you enjoy the convenience. Each one works across streaming, shopping, ride hailing, and subscriptions. The OECD has written about consumer vulnerability in the digital age, and it highlights how design and information complexity can raise risks for everyday users, especially when choices happen fast.
• Turn off autoplay where the setting exists, then use a watchlist as a deliberate queue.
• Treat rankings as a starting shelf, then use search once per session.
• Screenshot key prices and renewal dates the moment you subscribe to anything.
• Set one weekly audit for recurring charges, then cancel anything that adds little joy.
• Prefer clear privacy settings, then limit ad personalisation where the toggle exists.
Short form feeds add another layer, because they push rapid decisions rather than deliberate ones. A 2024 paper in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General reports seven experiments with a total sample of 1,223 participants and finds that switching and fast forwarding tends to increase boredom, while also lowering satisfaction and attention. That matters for consumer life because bored scrolling pairs neatly with impulse taps, and the language of “limited time” and “deal ending soon” lands harder when your brain seeks stimulation.
Advertising tech also shapes the menu you see, especially for retail and media. Canada’s Competition Bureau sued Google in 2024 over alleged anti-competitive conduct in online advertising technology, and the case focuses on how ad tech stacks can affect costs and competition in the market for attention. You don’t need to follow the legal detail to understand the consumer angle: a lot of “choice” starts with what ad systems place in front of you.
Don’t call it a comeback: Coworking receives a hybrid work makeover
London Inc. Weekly: A summary of regional business news from the past week
Résumé Botox: Millennial jobseekers are giving their résumés a facelift by hiding years of experience to land jobs
With Valentine’s Day approaching, should employers consider formalizing leave for emotional recovery?
Recording your lectures unlocks a new dimension for educators and professionals