A lot has been said about the ‘social media bubbles’ of the modern online world. For those not familiar, the ‘bubble’ is in reference to the effects of the algorithms that Facebook, Google, and the like use to determine what to show you when you use their sites.
The term usually refers to the political echo chambers that these algorithms create. You watch a video/like a comment/click on a search result with a certain percieved political viewpoint and these sites decide that you must want more of that same viewpoint, since they are ‘similar’.
It’s a largely accidental effect, stemming from these companies’ desire to encourage more engagement (and therefore ad clicks) on their sites. Certainly, some level of machine learning can be useful, and it’s easy to see how this came to be. Unfortunately, these echo chambers have further divided political groups (particularly American).
As problematic as that is, it’s not really what I want to talk about now. Instead I want to point out another side effect of those same algorithms that was pointed out to me by my partner: they encourage obsession.
The primary perpetrator here is YouTube. Watch one or two videos on some topic (say, for example, minimalism) without liking, commenting, or anything else of the sort, and YouTube seems to decide you have a new interest. Now, I’m not saying that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, except YouTube then seems to think that the appropriate next step is to recommend more videos about that same subject (from a similar standpoint, natch) everywhere.
See, it’s decided that since you’ve watched one of ‘em, you’ll watch more. A smart bet on the surface, but it hits the primary perverse incentive involved - advertising money. All YouTube wants is for you to watch more, so they can sell more ads. See, you’re not the customer, you’re the product, and Google wants to make you as valuable a product as possible. Which means making you watch more. Which means suggesting things they think you’ll watch. Which is what you’ve been watching. So watch some more. And more. And more.
Now, for most people this is probably just a minor annoyance. “No, YouTube, I already saw what I needed, I don’t care, go away.” But for people who already have some tendency towards obsessive behavior, well, it’s a recipe for a bad time. You start watching, and watching, and the death spiral begins. See, that sort of thing can have serious repercussions, even ignoring the wasted time. It has odd psychological effects that I’m really not qualified to speak on, but as someone who’s seen it happen, it’s not pretty.
I don’t know why I’ve not seen anything about this before. Maybe it’s the mental illness stigma. Maybe I’ve just missed the conversation, who knows. But I can’t help but notice now, and see yet another reason why something in this population-as-product ad economy needs to give. It’s slowly driving everyone mad, even those who think they’re not affected, and at this point it’s just downright unsustainable.
Normally I’d suggest a change, or an improvement, or even just try to add some food for thought on what to do. But with this? I just don’t know. An ad blocker won’t help, you’re still getting the suggestions with or without ads. I honestly doubt signing out would even really work, since most media sites track you anyways. Giving up social media isn’t a good option either, it’s just too valuable a service (a post for another time, I think) to completely give up. So here we are, with yet more things to watch out for when surfing the web.
Here and I thought wiki-walking was dangerous enough.