« Back

🐉

how to train your algo

on social media, content consumption
last updated 7/16/23

I'm a fan of the Center for Humane Technology. What they've done with The Social Dilemma and their podcast, Your Undivided Attention, deserves all of the praise.

I just wish they mixed in a few success stories?

There are couples meeting on Instagram, college kids finding jobs through Twitter, and thousands of people around the world who don't have anyone in their lives with the same niche interests.

By default, most social media apps are distractions.

I'm interested in how we can use them as tools to explore niches more intentionally and induce creativity.

What we consume dictates how we think, which determines what we do and who we become:

If we care about who we'll be, it's worth curating what we're consuming now.

One quick disclaimer - I don't know anything about AI or machine learning. It's probably best to think of this as “normal person's ideas about X” instead of “an expert's guide to X”.

We typically use social media like zombies. We scroll and scroll and scroll and every once in a while, we stumble on something awesome.

This is not a coincidence. The apps are designed like slot machines so that by default, we're using them in this completely passive, one-sided way.

When we don't have to make any decisions or use judgment, our screen time goes up, we see more ads, and these platforms make money:

Conversely, engaging with content we enjoy and making more intentional decisions as we scroll is the best way to improve the quality of content we're served.

Instead of a slot machine, the algo can be a conveyor belt for interesting ideas.

This is the best of what I've found about training algorithms as a user:

Start with a blank slate. Create a new Google account and use it to make fresh accounts for the platforms you're already on.

Positively engage with content you want to see more of.

On TikTok or YouTube, this might look like letting a favorite video play all the way through, maybe multiple times. Like and favorite, comment and reply, etc etc.

Negatively engage with content you don't want to see. Prune your feed. Most people skip this, but teaching the algo about what you dislike is just as important.

According to Mozilla, the most effective way to do this on YouTube is by pressing "Don't recommend channel". Each major platform has its own version of this button.

TikTok lets you long-press videos and tap the "Not interested" icon, Twitter has a “Not interested in this tweet” button, and so on.

If you notice that your feed is full of content you wouldn't choose to stack into your brain, start using this button more frequently.

Avoid commenting on content that makes you cringe. Remember, these platforms are optimized for engagement so any reaction, positive or negative, will be reinforced.

In high school my brother showed me some of Bobby Tewksbary's stuff and it sent us both down the #hittingtwitter rabbit hole.

We grew up in Connecticut, definitely not a baseball hotbed, so having access to free content from knowledgeable coaches across the country was a huge help.

I've largely repeated this process to immerse myself in startups, even though I wasn't (physically) around anyone in tech or the startup world.

Looking back at the last 8-10 years of my life, it's clear that:

At the CVS or Walmart checkout counter, everything within arm's reach is garbage. It's usually cigarettes, candy, and People Magazine.

The same is true on social media. Everything within arm's reach is garbage, and it's free.

These apps tend to push us towards the lowest common denominator of our interests, so it requires conscious effort to steer clear of junk and leverage the algo.

This effort is the price of higher quality content on social media. When we don't have the patience to pay that price, our daily mood gets taxed.

Even though the default state of Instagram is probably unhealthy for users, our experience on there can be customized. We have more agency than we realize.

Curating what we consume allows us to control how we think and feel. In turn, this affects what we do and over time, who we become. Choose thoughtfully.


INSPIRATION