The Algorithm
The constant stream of viral memes, hope, and fear that shapes your social media.
Around 825 CE, the now-immortalized Persian scientist Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī lived and worked in Baghdad’s House of Wisdom. There, he was surrounded by worldly scholars and countless tomes recording most of humanity’s collective knowledge up to that point in time. During these years, he wrote “Book of Indian Computation” and “Addition and subtraction in Indian arithmetic.” Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.
Fun fact to the side, just as we know our numbers as Arabic numerals, the Arab world knows them as Hindu numerals. While the Greeks and Romans famously lacked a “zero,” the concept was developed and traveled west out of northern India, shaping the foundations of early mathematics across the Classical World along the way.
Likewise, his two books meandered west over the following decades and centuries, with Latin translations turning al-Khwārizmī into “alghoarismi.” Starting to look familiar? A 13th century monastic text referred to place-value mathematical calculation as an “algorism” and Geoffrey Chaucer referenced augrym stones, used somewhat like an abicus, in “The Canterbury Tales.” Etymology continues its slow magic of reshaping his surname until we arrive at the modern version, algorithm, in 1596 with English mathematician Thomas Hood.
Now taught across the world, the word refers specifically to “a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions” in computation and broader problem-solving. Like tying your shoe…unless you’re hardcore and prefer to simply sort of smash them together each morning. Algorithms are the foundation of computer programming, the languages that make enormous strings of 1s and 0s into the words on this page, the attractive red of “Subscribe,” and the security programs resolutely shielding you from viruses or malware. But in this article’s particular context, I am talking about the Social Media Algorithm, that highly-individualized coding to build out and shape your unique feed of content on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc.
It is unfortunate that there is still a lot of confusion about how social media works among its billions of users worldwide. Two rules to really digest and remember here:
Your feed - friend’s posts, ads, viral memes- is a digital fingerprint, unique to you.
We are the product, and it is our attention that is being sold to marketers.
Tragically, Congress is not in a place today to understand social media. Or to ask the correct kind of questions of the industry. Or even to effectively regulate it. Indeed, following a rather sad Senate hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, it appears many of our politicians “don’t even understand how the advertising industry works,” says market analyst Tim Bajarin. “Listening to these Senators ask these questions is very frustrating, because they don’t understand the technology, and they don’t understand how Facebook really works.”
Alas, if only there were some office of bright young tech professionals dedicated to understanding and explaining new technologies for Congress! Ladies and gentlemen, the dearly departed Office of Technology Assessment. Founded in 1972, the agency was run by six Republicans and six Democrats in Congress. It provided analysis and reporting on complicated scientific developments, and was key to initiating the digitalization of federal documents. Speaker Newt Gingrich, with his 1994 Contract with America, defunded it while fellow Republican Congressman Amory Houghton criticized the decision, “we are cutting off one of the most important arms of Congress when we cut off unbiased knowledge about science and technology.”
On a bright note for Congress’ general tech savviness, it appears the aging trend of the last decade may have maxed out and the average of our 100 Senators and 435 Representatives is finally falling back down from the peaks of 65.3 and 58.9, respectively. Of course, it is a tragic fallacy to just inherently assume youth denotes some panacea, some intrinsic understanding of the digital playground.
As it turns out, being born with a tablet in hand does not inherently transfer computer skills. In studies assessing generational ability to discern real news from fake, Gen Z (born 1997-2012) scored the lowest. Today’s teenagers and 20-somethings suffer more from Misinformation Susceptibility than their grandparents do. The digital native is not a real thing. Yet 68% of American adults use Facebook, 47% use Instagram, and a third of us are on TikTok. We have casually immigrated without understanding the rules that govern this strange new land.
So, while Congress stutters and users of all age stumble around in the dark, let’s take a look at the algorithm shaping everything you see.
That’s my Instagram search feed. And yes, I am very proud of it, thank you. Remember rule #2? The user is what’s being sold. Instagram (along with Facebook and WhatsApp under Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms) is built entirely around engagement. It’s really quite a simple business plan. The longer you’re watching, the more ads you see, the more profit they pull. Think back to cable TV, only with some gilded gloss and a touch remote. And just because the cute/funny/angry meme you just watched isn’t blatantly commercial, it probably is still sourced from a user trying to build up an audience.
Often, a user stumbles into an echo chamber - mine is a particularly fluffy, playful chamber. By clicking repeatedly within a topic, the algorithm recognizes that feedback and in turn encourages it further. Because again, its primary goal is keeping you online. You like science → here’s a bunch of science experiment clips → you watched several hot girls do physics experiments → here’s hot girls doing things. And because five 10-second videos are worth more than one minute-long video, short content is encouraged and our attention spans are growing dramatically shorter.
Sometimes echo chambers are harmless, and indeed one of the miracles of social media is letting people with rare interests find fellow souls all around the world. How many lepidopterists live in Peoria? Yet it also allows the neighborhood loon to find other alternative thinkers, thus the opinion that was once laughed out of the diner is now a global organization thousands strong.
Sure, some of those followers are there ironically. You willing to bet money on how many?
This then introduces us to algorithmic radicalization. We are communal animals; as such, how we act in a group is substantially different. A like-minded group tends to polarize from the norm, taking increasingly radical positions from each other and content which disseminate through the group, eventually adopted as consensus. Without input from beyond the echo chamber to maintain the old status quo beliefs, members fundamentally shift over time encouraged by the unique content feed shaped for them. This leads to quirky ideas like thinking the White Sox are better than the Cubs… and horrific ideas like the racist hatred of last month’s Evergreen High School mass shooter.
Consider the most powerful emotions and impulses we face. If someone wants to grab and hold your attention, a heady cocktail of fear, hatred, and sex would do quite nicely. Such a relentless yet mindless feed of negativity - known as doomscrolling - is a tragically common aspect of social media addiction. And yet, no matter the proclamations, the whistleblowers, the school initiatives, we just can’t seem to pull ourselves away from swiping & scrolling. That dopamine cycle is just too damn delicious to our lizard brain. Why go outside and #touchgrass when you’ve got all you lust for or hate or already agree with right at your fingertips.
So here we are today, not fundamentally different on a biological level than our ancestors were while inventing the wheel and making cave drawings. We’ve journeyed a long way from stone to silicon. This Digital Age was initiated by the ubiquity of social media and the internet in our pockets bringing humanity intimately close. Now, looming larger by the day - with tragically little oversight and each industry fighting its own battle - are Artificial Intelligence platforms, tools, and social media.
Regulation done well, like we almost did with TikTok, could help a lot. China’s domestic version, Douyin, prioritizes educational content and limits access by age. For several years now, influencer has been the top career aspiration for young Americans.
We are Alice, beyond the looking glass, in a strange new world. My follow-up article will continue forward on this path, analyzing Artificial Intelligence specifically, and how it is rapidly reshaping what’s possible outside of a major studio. When your entire social media feed is AI generated - not just the content, but the creators are too - then we get into “dead internet” territory. Also, because I am happily pedantic, I’ll break down how calling it AI is more marketing gimmick than a true synthetic brain.
Stop scrolling through reels and short-form videos. Note, I’m not saying don’t use social media, just be proactive with it instead of letting the algorithm choose for you. Talk to your loved ones, check out what their feed is sending them, and most importantly of all #touchgrass.
Take care of yourself, and if you can, a neighbor.
a very thoughtful and mind provoking article. Thank you for the insights..
Thank you!
I especially appreciate your succinct closing:
“ Take care of yourself, and if you can, a neighbor.”