Every day, I open social media with the expectation that I will watch what I want to see. I used to welcome this with open arms, but recently I’ve started to wonder; is my timeline too catered for my own good?
It’s extremely easy to make your feed personalized by hiding posts or clicking “not interested.” Algorithms are programmed to show content similar to what you interact with most. They also target the algorithms of others with similar interests, so you are only exposed to like-minded people. Because of differing preferences, your “Explore” page probably looks nothing like your parents’ or even someone else’s your age who has different interests than you.
Now more than ever, we have a greater exposure to media than we’ve ever had, making it possible for anything from any era to reappear on social media. Any form of media can be combined in an edit or meme that people would understand. Never without social media and algorithms would it be possible to see an edit of “The Bear” to a song from “Hamilton” or basketball highlights to an early 2000s soft rock song. In this way, having a perfectly curated algorithm is entertaining and fits niche interests. But in other aspects it is severely harmful.
I find it a bit eerie how, with location settings, you are bound to see videos and posts from a certain place while you are in that area. As an out-of-state student, I am getting more Connecticut-related TikToks on my “For You” page than I ever have before. Many companies use this tactic to push their products and increase foot traffic in nearby businesses. Location adds another level of accuracy that makes people too aware of what is close to them and is another form of unnecessary social media marketing.
Other than making people spend money, the near perfection of our algorithms has made us blind to other perspectives. We are being conditioned to see only what we like, leading to us only interacting with people who think like us. This is dangerous because in the real world, not everyone thinks like us. This one-sided way of seeing things can lead people to jump to conclusions and absorb incomplete narratives that lead to misconceptions. This is an alarming reality as studies show that 55 percent of adults say that they get their news from social media. Getting news from a place that caters to your experience is not the best way to make sure that you are seeing the full truth.
In a less serious matter, social media has the power to ruin things because it knows what you like. Algorithms use data to personalize content, and because of this, I have had several shows and movies spoiled for me. There have been too many times where I decided to scroll on social media before watching a show, just to see the plot twist of the season ruined. By interacting with a post from a certain show or movie franchise, they know that I am interested in it, and it comes back to me in the form of a spoiler.
The preciseness of your feed also makes it so that the algorithm is in tune with what you are going through at that moment. Based on what you interact with, the algorithm knows your age range and will push timely content on you. Turning to social media as a break from our daily lives has turned into seeing someone in your exact same position, which isn’t necessarily comforting. This further shrinks our perception of reality because not everyone is going through what one individual person goes through, but these tailored feeds make it seem like it is that way.
It is important now more than ever to be skeptical of what you see as algorithms just get more and more accurate. While it’s entertaining to have a personal profile to scroll through carefully chosen content at your leisure, we should turn away from social media if we want to experience the real world. The real world is where you’ll really meet more people who are different from you and expand your horizons.