The Algos
January 5, 2024
#250
My kids are *lucky enough* (read: sarcasm) to have come of age at the same time as social media.
Born between ‘03 & ‘07, they were pre-teens & teens when people first started getting smart phones and accessing social media at scale.
We will look back at this period of time, and this group of kids, as a massive social experiment for how this change impacted society.
The combination of social media & the smartphone has changed lives. The iPhone is the greatest physical consumer product of all time. The question will be how we adapt and balance the good with the bad.
Algorithms
Social media companies use algorithms (fancy math) to determine what will drive user engagement & the resulting ad spending on their platform. They track every move you make. How much time you spend on a post, what posts you choose to engage with, what you type into the comments section … everything done on their platform is tracked to increase your time spent and the resulting ad spend.
“If something is free, you are the product” - Andrew Lewis
This makes for a really good business &, from a pure product technology perspective, is a wonder of human achievement.
The issue is human nature. What drives engagement & the resulting profits is outrage, crazy comments, oversexualization, emotion. This is true for all humans … and massively amplified on teens.
What is the cost & what are we to do?
Study-after-study suggests a massive toll on mental health, particularly teen mental health. A Substack called After Babel, has done a good job of writing & monitoring this topic. The statistics are shocking.
There is too much money being made to rely on the mega-corporations to make a change. And, frankly, if they did change & modified their algorithms to reduce engagement, a new entrant would enter the market and win their ad dollars (see Tik-Tok, which is a relative newcomer to the social media landscape & has mastered the addictive feed).
Social media isn’t going away and will likely play a bigger role in our future … and to be clear, there are massive benefits to social networks with improved communication, commerce, education. But YOU need to be in control of this relationship.
My suggestions:
First is the just be aware that you are seeing what the comapny (IG, X, Tik-Tok, etc) wants you to see … what you are seeing is not your choice.
Don't let algorithms tell you that you are sick, or ugly, or fat, etc.
Manage your feed.
Use the mute and block features.
Turn the algorithms in your favor.
Put your phone down for defined periods of time.
Don’t have your phone in the same room where you sleep.
Be cognizant of your scroll-time.
Make time for real human interactions.
I believe social media mis-use to be the #1 issue for the generation born in the 2000’s. Those that use the technology will see enormous benefit. Those that let the technology use them, will struggle.
