"Captology" is derived from "Computers as Persuasive Technology," and is the study of how computers can be used to "persuade" human behavior. While identified in the 1960s, the practice will expand in the 1990s with the creation of the World Wide Web.

Captology is what happens when, for example, a person clicks on a smoking cessation site (or on a cigarette site) and then begins to receive ads on social media and commercials on streamed content, information to encourage ending smoking. These could include "media" articles on the health impacts of smoking, ads for companies to support smoking cessation, and so on.

Embedded in captology is the relationship between human input (values, goals, strategies) and the growing evolution of "bots," which take those goals and strategies to build media experiences for the individual consumer that attends to those input ideals.

One could argue it also set a precedent for social media surveillance.