The Algorithm controls nearly everything people see online. It’s a slot machine where the wager is your time and you can never cash out. The vast majority of content out there is not very interesting, nor is it particularly good for you to look at them. But all the same, you will keep scrolling anyway. The Algorithm doesn’t serve you. Its real masters are advertisers and those they pay. The more time you spend scrolling, the more ads you’ll see, and the more likely you are to buy something you don’t need.
There are many things in the world that you should be doing besides begging at the feet of The Algorithm for scraps of dopamine. For example, you could go outside, play a sport, maybe even talk to a friend. Social media addiction is real. It affects an uncountable amount of people, including children who can barely control their bladders, much less their screen time. The Algorithm doesn’t make it easy to quit this addiction. It will tirelessly feed you as much fungible, meaningless content as you ask it for. If you quit cold turkey, you’ll miss out on what everyone else is talking about. You could try to limit your screen time, but even then, the screen time you allow yourself is still time squandered by The Algorithm.
With all that being said, I don’t think social media is inherently harmful. The Algorithm tries hard to take away your agency, but you can make social media work for you. Recently, I found out that Facebook does have a Friends feed, which only show you posts from your friends—the people you intentionally chose to connect with on Facebook. But they don’t make it easy to find the Friends feed—lest it cannibalizes your attention from the insatiable appetite of The Algorithm.
I think that seeing content from only people you chose to follow should be the default, not a well-hidden alternative for savvy people who are willing to hunt for it. Therefore, I just published a new Chrome extension called Friends Feed Redirect. Unlike other extensions that try to “fix” the home page using complex content scripts that are liable to break any time Facebook gets updated, Friends Feed Redirect takes a much simpler approach: Whenever you try to go to the Facebook home page, it’ll redirect you instead to the Friends feed. That way, you can still use Facebook to stay in touch with people, but you have to be intentional about it.
No mindless scrolling. No clickbait. No fake news. Catch up with your friends’ activity, then go do something else. That’s how it should always have been.