Algorithm

Honestly, this one isn’t going easy for me to explain or type out. It wont be because I myself don’t exactly understand it.

It’s about social media’s. I hate them I just do, I have these maybe irrational feelings towards them that I can’t explain but I hate them. Sometimes I feel like I have to justify myself as to why I hate them and other times I don’t. But often times I can’t, I can’t find a reason that I so strongly dislike them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate each platform on their own, I use some quite frequently. I have a very active but private instagram account and snapchat is where I prefer to talk to my friends.

So I don’t know, I thought maybe I had this break through about myself saying I hate social media because I can’t stand scrolling on instagram because I don’t want the algorithm knowing things about me (as if it already didn’t know me better than anyone else). If you’re unfamiliar with what that is in more detail I suggest you watch “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix. I watched that movie in high school and I think that was probably one of the most informative things that I learned in that place. And maybe that’s where my angst towards social platforms started. I knew even then I came out of that classroom completely changed on the ways that I viewed technology. That was a while ago though and I don’t completely remember all the details but even with knowing all of that I’m still not sure what all of my reason are for detesting it so bad. I guess what I need to clarify is that I don’t hate all of social media I hate the short term based videos begging you to stay on the app. Before you think this is the reason, I have been cyber bullied before but that was years ago and I can’t be bothered to know what other people say about me behind closed doors never mind social media. 

It’s not like all aspect of social media are distasteful to me. It’s good for spreading information around and for letting people know what’s really going on. And there’s other benefits like it keeps friendships closer and long distance relationships easier but that doesn’t feel redeeming enough in my eyes.

The biggest part that I struggle with is scrolling. I keep at 30 minute timer on my instagram so I don’t get caught up scrolling for hours at a time. I still do regardless, next thing I know I’m pushing the button that says “Ignore for the day” and then I spend another 30 minutes on my phone when I should be doing something else. It just feels like brain rot. It feels like I’m laying in bed doing nothing but watching these videos that don’t mean anything. I mean sure you come across one that’s like “haha I’m gonna send this to my bestie” but it’s not a close way to stay connected. It doesn’t really mean anything, they’re just videos. A lot of the time made so the creator can blow up and eventually make money off of your inevitable time wasting.

It just doesn’t sit right with me. It just doesn’t, and I can’t do this conversation or this post justice because I cannot for the life of my figure out why. I see posts on there (ironic I know) that talk about how people will come out of doom scrolling and they feel nothing. They just feel void, because what did they do for the last 2 hours? Lay in there bed watching bs videos that meant nothing to them.

You know for a while there I said I didn’t like scrolling because I was worried about my dopamine levels. You get this small shoot of dopamine when you come across a video that makes you laugh, but that isn’t real dopamine that isn’t genuine connections that makes you happy. That is literal Artificial Intelligence trying to get a kick out of you so you stay on the app for just a little bit longer. And maybe that is a good reason but sure enough I stopped using it, probably because it sounds pretentious. 

My problem isn’t with social media, my problem is with scrolling. With reels, and Tik Toks, and Youtube shorts. It’s with all of this short term based content that adds nothing to your brain. I honestly think that watching a youtube video or a movie that doesn’t or make you think other anything like that is pretty much the same thing. But at least when you’re watching a long based nothing burger you’re not also destroying your attention span. I didn’t even get into comparisons through those apps and how most of it is faked or exaggerated ten fold but those are some of my reasons too.

I guess I do have a lot of good reasons for hating social media but explaining that to someone when they ask isn’t as easy as just saying “I don’t know.” Unfortunately there’s still so many other reasons too but when it’s so prevalent in our lives it’s hard to be so negative on these apps. Anyway, no one asked but yet here’s my two sense on algorithms and short term videos.

Lots of Love, June