If you are like me, you may spend a good chunk of time on the internet. I use it for research, shopping, social connection, news, and entertainment. And, like me, you may have noticed that once we put something “out there”, we see more and more of things related to it.
Search for something—let’s say best sneakers for hiking—and for days on end, we are deluged with ads for sneakers popping up on Facebook, Instagram, news apps, Gmail, etc., until we are, at the least, annoyed.
Welcome to the world of internet algorithms. Sometimes it’s kind of nice. For example—I saw a Facebook reel featuring ballet and clicked on it. Clicked on it and watched it from beginning to end because I have an affinity for dance. Afterwards, when I was on Facebook perusing posts by my friends, I noticed a couple more reels featuring ballet. Not AI generated ballet, but actual human dancers. (I admit that AI has become so good at mimicking real life, that sometimes it’s hard to tell. But that’s for another post.) I was pulled by my love for classical ballet to view both of the new reels in entirety. Well, as may have been expected, more and more ballet-centric reels began populating my view of Facebook.
But just like the old adage, “be careful what you wish for”, sometimes we begin seeing things during our online visits with which we absolutely do not want to be associated. As a writer, my online research sometimes takes on a more “exotic” bent that has nothing to do with my actual life or interests. As an example, search for information about guns and shooting for your book, and the mathematically designed computer programs that work in the background of the internet see this as a way to grab your attention and, voila, we begin to see ads for guns, guns, guns… Not only ads urging us to purchase guns, but ads inviting us to join such organizations as the National Rifle Association. From there, the algorithms take on a political angle, and we are placed in a particular political bucket.
Sometimes, I can lessen ads and info I am not interested in by clicking on the little dots on the picture that give me the option to hide the reel, ad, etc., and answer why I’m taking that action. Hopefully, that is not just another way to get deeper into the algorithm’s mathematical brain! And, like it or not, the algorithms are not there to give you a better internet experience because someone out there cares about you. Most of the time, there is monetization involved. Someone is making money off of your clicks.
So…bottom line, watch what you watch, and let me know if there is another way to neutralize algorithm-oriented posts.
Thanks for stopping by. Y’all come back, now.
See you in August!
Kathryn