The dark side of Social Media and Algorithms (3-5 min read)
You're curled up on the couch, fully immersed in a great book or movie, when your phone interrupts with a ding! That unmistakable sound pulls you out of the moment. Maybe it's that message you have been waiting for all day or an important update from your doctor. You pick up your phone just to check. But it is just a message from Facebook, reading: "You have 3 notifications waiting for you!"
You may think to yourself it can wait. As you return to your book or movie, you find your concentration wanes. You hesitate, but the idea lingers in your mind. What could it be, a message from an old friend? An update on a viral post or news story? Slowly, that itch to check becomes irresistible.
Twenty minutes later, you snap out of a haze of endless scrolling and you can’t even recall why you opened the app in the first place. Worse, your focus is shattered, and the magic of your book or movie is gone.
What just happened isn’t random, it is by design. After a long period of back and forth over the pros and cons, I’ve cut social media down to business basics, but that pavlovian ding still does what it’s designed to do: it breaks my focus and plants an itch.
Social media platforms are built to exploit and redirect our attention. We are increasingly seeing the world through the telescope of our algorithms. Politics, world events and ideas are rapidly filtered through what the algorithm thinks you might engage with on an individual level. This filter is highly optimised for engagement, and platforms monetise your attention by understanding your personal opinions, temperament and interests.
How and why do they gather all of this information? By monitoring in-app and out-of-app behaviour. Online shopping, behavioural patterns and sometimes even your location. All of this gets wrapped up into an Advertising ID (Because privacy is bad for business!).
But it's free to use, you might think to yourself. Ponder the impact of TV since it’s introduction. If the product is free (Live TV), then you're the product (via advertising). When this is utilised through the use of an adaptive algorithm — it’s no wonder social media companies have become some of the most profitable businesses to ever exist.
They sell their findings to eager advertisers. Each platform — Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X and TikTok — having a monetary stake to keep you engaged and actively using their product. In this way they trade in the currency of your attention.
So if these platforms are incentivised to get you in their app whatever way they can — "a friend of a friend's, friend commented on something you don't care about" — what are the best ways to keep their audience? There is an adage in advertising that "sex sells". But that's old news! There's a much better way to hold attention, rage.
Enragement = engagement or so the saying goes, and anger is one enormously powerful emotion. Content that sparks the anger, agitation or rage responses in our lizard brain reliably drive time spent in app. In today's polarised, political, and ever connected world, social media platforms are selling attention like pickaxes in a gold rush.
Content creators are rewarded on the basis of their engagement levels. As anger is more likely to create a high-arousal response, they are not necessarily incentivised to produce thoughtful and meaningful content (though many still do). The acts of commenting (arguing), reposting (calling out), and repeatedly checking (doom scrolling / updating) are all expected as a result of agitation based content.
Dopamine — the neurotransmitter responsible for anticipation, pursuit of goals and rewards —
often comes up with regard to social media use. Throughout much of history this system served you by helping identify valuable actions likely to lead to a positive reward.
These systems are actively hijacked by the instant gratification loops and systems that conjure the illusion of a functioning social network. In our modern context, we are running advanced software on ancient biology. All being served by an algorithm with a limited ability to discern truth.
We've swiftly moved from long form content — full length books about a single topic, debates and good faith arguments — to watching 15 second clips devoid of nuance, edited for heat and to portray the least charitable narrative. This mixture of addictive behaviour patterns, polarising topics and us verse them mentality creates a space that, for all the good it does to connect people, can be a bitter medicine indeed.
Next time you're scrolling, take note of the language:
“You won’t believe…”,
“This is disgusting…”,
“They’ve gone too far…”
“So we’re just okay with this now...”
Personally, this wouldn't matter if it were just capitalism. But algorithmic echo chambers shape what people notice, what feels urgent and what feels normal. All of which have the potential to influence our perception on real world beliefs.
For the younger users it gets worse. Many teens and young adults spend enormous time on entertainment media, and a large portion report feeling worse the longer they stay plugged in.
So what do we do?
Not perfection. Just friction.
Turn off non-essential notifications (start with social apps).
Remove apps from the home screen or log out after use.
Disable or limit location permissions; review privacy and ad personalisation settings.
Set a hard daily time cap and a “no scrolling in bed” rule. Better yet, put your phone charger outside your room.
Curate aggressively: unfollow rage-bait, follow long-form, high-signal sources.
Build alternatives: spend your attention pennies on podcasts, newsletters, books and other content that rewards you for your time in them, instead of exploiting it.
None of this is to say social media has no upside. It connects people. It informs. It entertains. But it’s a package deal and the hidden cost is often your attention, your mood, and your ability to think in full paragraphs.
- Sam
