Imagine interviewing people who silence their phones during dinner. Someone labels the comments “digital fatigue.” By the time an AI-generated summary reaches the client, the finding reads: “Consumers are rejecting connectivity.” The interviews may be accurately quoted, yet the conclusion says something the participants never said. A habit has acquired a motive, and a few people have come to stand for a market. To support that conclusion, the team would need to establish why people put their phones away and how widely those reasons are shared. If it also claims that attitudes are changing, it needs evidence from more than one point in time. In cultural research, drift happens when an explanation changes as the work passes between people and tools and nobody checks what justified the change.
