Internet Algorithms Are Ruining Our Lives

Internet Algorithms Are Ruining Our Lives

Washington Post – Internet Algorithms

So I was reading through the article linked above and it brings up a very good point, one I have thought about before and have tried to act on with no luck. Internet algorithms can certainly be a great thing. They can accurately predict our behavior and give us what we want before we know we want it. However, I am starting to see it being used for nefarious reasons more and more and it seems like even though you try to teach it otherwise it always reverts back to how it was originally set, sometimes not even by you but by the people who control the internet algorithm. I’ll break it down and explain it a bit.

What are internet algorithms? Internet algorithms are pieces of code written into websites and applications we use that, based on past interactions, predicts what we want more of and only shows us that type of content. The problem with these algorithms is that what’s happening now is developers are writing code to show us biased information and useless, time-consuming crap. What was once only done by television is now also being done on the internet. We are being fed what they want to show us.

Since it’s the most popular site, lets use Facebook as an example. I, like another billion other people, have a Facebook and scroll through my feed daily. I do this because I want to see what my friends have been up to and what they’re doing. What vacations they are on, what new MEANINGFUL life events have occurred in their lives. You get the idea. What I don’t want to see are the thousands of non-sense articles, videos and pictures they re-post and share because I am neither interested in that nor do I want to spend my time on those things. Facebook gives you an option to close those posts from your feed and hit a button that says “I don’t want to see this” which is supposed to show you less of those type of posts and for a day or two that may be the case but those types of posts all come fumbling back shortly after even though you haven’t interacted with any posts resembling that type of content. Long gone are the days where your feed displayed in chronological order and I wish Facebook would bring that back.

I’m not bashing internet algorithms, on the contrary they are amazing and really help facilitate our lives. What I am upset about is the fact that these algorithms can’t be changed once they are set and that they are easily manipulated by the content provider and the viewer or user can not easily change them to their liking. Facebook unfortunately is not the only one, just the other day I read someone’s comment about how Spotify used to be their go to website to learn about new music and it was easy to find new artists and songs but now that’s just not the case anymore. They keep getting fed the same songs and the same artists. So lets take these internet algorithms with a grain of salt and realize that although they are suppose to make life easier, they can also be used to control us.