I have Spotify open pretty much all the time. Last month I was going through a crisis and binged sad bedroom pop for two weeks straight. Now every playlist Spotify makes is drenched in melancholy. Even my 'workout mix' sounds like I should be crying on a treadmill. I want to listen to something upbeat, something angry even, but the algorithm has decided I'm a sad person now. I obviously can go and look for something else to listen to, there are plenty of playlists I can choose from, but what I'm saying is that now the curated part of Spotify, for me, is broken. I need to actively fight against it in order to get something new to listen to.
Eli Pariser called this the "filter bubble." In his 2011 book, he explained how these algorithmic filters shape and skew our view of the world. I'm stuck looking at a version of reality based on two weeks of sadness. The algorithm took a temporary mood and turned it into my entire identity.
This is the thing about algorithms. They're binary. They deal in 1s and 0s. A click is like a vote, an approval, a conscious choice of what I want and what I don't. The reels algorithm will keep showing you one pot recipes if you watch one video in its entirety. Twitter will keep showing you shitty propaganda ads after you click on one accidentally. There is no room for a guilty pleasure, no room for my innocent curiosity. Consuming anything on the internet is an approval process in the most abstracted form of things. One "yes" that will change the shape of an infinite stream of content.
The problem is that our user patterns have no feelings. They create a reductive reflection of the thoughts and emotions we actually experience when consuming content. Sometimes, I hesitate to click the "Not interested" button. Am I really ready to say goodbye, forever? Once it's gone from the feed, it will leave me for good. My algorithm has a better memory than me, maybe because I trust it to behave as an extension of myself. I entrust my algorithm to take on aspects of my preferences and personality so I can free up some extra space in my brain.
Often for thrifting, I try to search on Instagram about thrift shops, offers, whatever. And I know that the algorithm registers this as an intent and will feed me options for the coming week or so. I trust it to solve the problem of searching and filtering options for me. Weirdly, it works. I've figured out the hack to get good niche recommendations on Instagram is to just search once for what you want and the ads will shove so many brands and recommendations at you it's crazy. I use it almost as a discovery mechanism now.
But here's the thing: I've had to learn this hack. I've had to game a system that's supposedly designed to help me discover things. The fallibility of its prediction is likely. There's no way to know for certain if I'll enjoy each of its suggestions simply because it's related to what I typically consume. My preferences are often spontaneous, instinctive, illogical. The algorithm isn't choosing its gifts based on intimate attention to my preferences. It selects my little gifts based on preferences of the masses. You'll be prescribed that content based on the assumption that you fit the majority.
There's a psychological phenomenon that explains why this works so well: the "mere exposure effect." Psychologist Robert Zajonc discovered that repeated exposure to something is enough to make us prefer it. He found that "preferences need no inferences"—we don't need a reason to like something, we just need to see it enough times. The algorithm exploits this perfectly, feeding us variations of the same content until we mistake familiarity for genuine preference.
This bothers me more than I'd like to admit. On a TikTok that underlines an extremely specific human experience, the top comment will always be "Damn, we all living the same life fr." We're not, though. Or at least, we shouldn't be. But the algorithm makes us feel like we are. It nullifies our sense of individuality, a negation we're subjected to continually through our use of social media. Does the algorithm force us into the majority? Is it possible to express individuality when the algorithm feeds me what's most popular?
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Your algorithm isn't a reflection of you. It's a prediction of who you will be in the future, configured from past data. In a way, the passive user is shaped by their algorithm.
David McRaney writes in "You Are Not So Smart" that we're confabulatory creatures, always explaining our actions to ourselves after the fact. Maybe I'm doing that now ; convincing myself I chose this algorithm, that I'm in control of my digital life. But as McRaney points out, "control is an illusion anyway."
One day your algorithm feels too long gone, a portrait based on your past self, a bygone era, the guy from yesterday who spent an hour watching random video rabbit holes, a guy who no longer exists.
What do we do? Time to deactivate and start again.
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