☆ feedback loops & algorithms ☆
Recently, I've been hearing a lot about how our social media algorithms flatten our sense of selves. Ironically, I've created an algorithm that tells me how algorithms are bad. There's something to be explored there, but for today, i want to talk about feedback loops.
According to Wikipedia, "feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to feed back into itself". The term feedback loop is used in reference to biology, psychology, climate change, and, most recently, social media.
When you scroll through Instagram, or TikTok, or - god forbid - X, you are inadvertently creating your own algorithm based on how and for what duration you interact with media. Watching ten videos of NYC fashion girlies showing you their new Vibram FiveFingers (iykyk), will result in 100 more videos of why you need Vibram FiveFingers.
This is an arguably less harmful example, although the promotion of overconsumption is not harmless. There are more sinister and creeping outcomes of social media algorithms. Speaking from an American perspective, trad wives, alpha males, and the reinassance of toxic masculinity are all norms being pushed by these feedback loops.
When you create your own little echo chamber on your phone, where you are being served only one perspective, you start to believe that your algorithm is reality, that everyone else is living in the same corner of the internet. The truth is, we have all (if we have social media) built self-fulfilling feeds and explore pages that reinforce what we already believe about the world and ourselves. We are getting pushed further and further from understanding one another, and closer and closer to extreme cultural polarities.
I do not have a solution to offer you, unfortunately, other than to cut down time on social media platforms that use these feedback loops, and to remember that the world is a million times larger and more interesting than your explore page.