The contract you implicitly make with social media algorithms is: I will give you my attention, in return you show me what you want to. Furthermore, your motive for choosing the media I am to be shown will be to maximize your profit.
In short, you acknowledge that you are the product and you are being manipulated. First you are manipulated to engage with ads and spend money. Then you are manipulated to increase your time on site. This is done so you spend more time looking at ads. This is a bad arrangement. Yet every time someone opens a social media app, they assent to that contract. I don’t like that so I decided to take control of my “feeds”. Everything I see I have opted-in to.
I think there are a few benefits to taking control of your media diet. The first is to eliminate fake news. I think I have good media literacy, but even I have been caught up in a few delusions. I also often talk with people who you would otherwise regard as intelligent spouting all kinds of irrational nonsense, so I think that no one is immune to fake news. In basically every instance of delusion, the idea came from social media. (or some other type of media that is based on outrage and engagement). So when I invert this and avoid social media, obviously I won’t be exposed to fake news.
The second is that I prefer long form content. Long form content allows the author to fully lay out their ideas without the limitations of character count or soundbite length. It’s apparent that tiktok and social media generally destroys your attention span.
The third is that most media is nonsense. Social media wants as many people to produce as much free content for their platform as possible. By definition most content is low effort and low quality. I don’t want to fill my mind with nonsense.
Once you have decided to move away from social media, you have to ask yourself “now what do I replace it with?” I think the best answer is RSS feeds. With RSS feeds can you choose long form content publishers and get their new content pieces delivered directly to you. You can use and RSS reader, but I prefer to use my email as the reader. I can swipe between posts, organize feeds based on topic and more. I think it makes a lot of sense. Now every piece of media I view I have opted-in to. Basically I pay $1.50 a month to avoid selling my data. I think I am worth that much. And as a side benefit I have been writing more, which helps me to engage with ideas on a higher level.
Read more: Here is how to choose your own media feed.
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