The advanced algorithms of social media feeds are intensely optimized around “personalization”. Through trial and error it attempts to understand what interests you and what holds your attention. It tries to mirror who you are in order to maximize your attention.
The problem with this goes beyond our dwindling attention spans and aggressive polarization between echo chambers. Once the algorithm has refined its curation of content and information to show us, it simultaneously blocks out new ideas and information that may cause us to change. In this way it “entombs” our Being.
It acts like a preservative rather than a fertilizer. This keeps us static, predictable, and easier to advertise to. It also stop us from developing as individuals.
Connections
Digital Gardening & Bottom Up Profiles
Link Explanation: Social media is effectively a sorting algorithm. It shoves the individual into a group by forcing them to define themselves by what can be shared and consumed online. This “emtombs” the Self. However, spending time writing and curating your knowledge allows you to define yourself from the ground up, escaping the trap.
Identity As a Constraint On Adaptability
Link Explanation: Social media workflows show you content that engages you and then require to you curate and define yourself into the niches you’ve been influenced by via the content you share. It works as an identity curating machine. However that identity is heavy biased towards advertising streams that the platform can profit from. The identity can also become an issue because once you’ve defined your identity, it now needs to die in order for you to adapt to a changing world. That is a painful process and it is often easier to cling to your self-definition rather than grow into something new. This is made especially difficult if the content you are being pushed towards watching is the same that pushed you to define yourself in that old way originally.
Reference
� How to Do Nothing