Don’t Tune Your Recommendations

Every morning I open social media hoping to read something new, cool, and refreshing. But all platforms already know my interests so I see half of the articles about programming and half about writing. That's it. I could go ahead and tune my recommendations adding a few more topics, but do I really know what I want to read?

People's interests are so broad that it's hard to fit them in tight boxes. Mary loves cooking. John likes reading books. However, there are million other things that the algorithm doesn't know about John or Mary. There are hundreds of things they don't know about themselves.

Now, I don't want to say that all algorithms are evil. All social media, not only Medium, use them because we think that's what we want. I just want to highlight the downsides of this approach.

It Kills Creativity

The most unexpected and beautiful ideas are born when we find something we weren't looking for. Mary loves cooking but then one day she randomly finds an article about new online courses and finds out that Masterclass offers an amazing course by Gordon Ramsay. Mary is thrilled. Nobody in her favorite publication about cooking mentioned it before! It's impossible to be creative when you are not exposed to new ideas. And the algorithms are definitely not helping.

It Makes Us Biased

The recommended articles won't broaden your horizons, but they also will make you biased.

The thing is, you always see only one side of a coin. You always read like-minded people who believe in the same things. Let's imagine that John is against vaccines. He googled it a few times, watched a video, discussed it with his friend on Facebook, and found an amazing Medium article on the same topic. Since he is looking for arguments against vaccines, he keeps finding them everywhere. The algorithm is not dumb and the last thing it wants is to disappoint John. It cares whether or not John stays on the platform, and he is more likely to stay if he sees the content he wants to see. People love to feel right, this is just who we are.

So the next day he opens Youtube and Facebook only to see more stories that support his arguments. A few weeks later, he feels like he is surrounded by like-minded people who get him. It feels good to finally know that so many people hate vaccines too! He has never read a single article about the potential health benefits so he is convinced more than ever before that he is right. Now, it's him against the world. His ego is triumphant.

Somewhere a few miles away from John lives the person who did the exact opposite. He had read all he could find about the positive effects of vaccines. Now, if those two ever going to get together, they might have a very tense conversation. Who is right in this situation? Nobody.

When you focus only on white or black, you lose the perspective, essentially forgetting that all stuff is grey. There is both good and bad in everything but you, like one of these blind men, is too focused on one detail to see the whole picture:

Four blind men touch an elephant. The one who touches the trunk says, "An elephant is like a thick wiggling vine." The one who touches an ear says, "No, an elephant is like a big leathery fan." The one who touches the body says, "No! An elephant is like a big brick wall!" And the one who touches the tail says, "How could you all be so wrong?! An elephant is like a hanging, swaying rope!"

Whose Fault Is It?

So all algorithms that construct your feed are bad? Not necessarily. They just have a different goal and it's not to show you the truth or make you more creative. Algorithms are great but sometimes, we need to take matters into our own hands. Don't blindly trust the algorithm.

Instead, try to challenge it and find the articles that say the exact opposite of what you are hoping to read. Go and explore a completely new category, especially if you feel like you are stuck and nothing excites you anymore. There is still a lot to learn! You just need to make an effort to see beyond what you already know.

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This article was originally published on Medium.com