‘We are not powerless’

It’s rare for a week of my life to go by without someone grumbling about how technology
makes our lives better, until it doesn’t. Within the world of health care where I work, we’ve become remarkably dependent on it. When our charting system threatens a shutdown, we’re laden with anxiety about how to carry on. And yet we nurses regularly voice discomfort over how technology has complicated care and taken away from human engagement.

Technology equips us in healthy ways while also causing immense problems.

One area of today’s tech which sits entirely at the negative end of the spectrum is the world of social media algorithms. The harms outweigh any benefits and prosper only the world’s rich while making a mess of our society.

These algorithms exaggerate and perpetuate almost all other problems we face. They are designed to suck users in, to create rage and to feed insecurities while providing endless, empty strategies for fixing them. When I look to Instagram for workout inspiration, I find myself feeling increasingly inadequate compared to the perfectly toned influencers the algorithm keeps throwing in my face.

As a parent, I feel this problem even more intensely. It’s impossible to find the right balance between controlling my kids’ content and teaching them to be discerning in their consumption. I’m losing the battle. I feel like I’m the size of a beetle taking on Goliath. Their underdeveloped minds aren’t equipped to resist a system designed for addiction, with a constant stream of affirmations and rewards drawing them in. I face accusations of being too controlling, too “healthy,” and too “stuck in the 90s.” If only my kids knew the pain of listening to the internet dial-up while waiting for my poorly pixelated game to open on my Tandy 3000 before I lost my turn as one of six computer users! Oh, how I’d like to take them back to those days.

Inciting rage

If I could pick out two societal supervillains, I would name Elon Musk of X and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. I know these are just the ones who make headlines and there are others, with actions equally parasitic, who make similar billions off social media algorithms. Their algorithms feed off our despair, hate, conceit and fear to supply their never-ending greed. They have learned that there is a bottomless supply of money to be made by triggering the extreme ends of our emotions.

Research has shown that the reordering of social media feeds can sway political opinions, giving power to those who choose that order. It’s worrisome because I don’t think Musk, Zuckerberg or anyone else in this business has shown altruistic motives or an interest in prioritizing users’ safety. These companies make money by inciting rage and keeping our eyes engaged longer; this drives up their advertisers’ profit margins. Truth is drowned out by the temptations of clickbait and sharebait that creators design and consumers fall for. 

Consider the spewing of racism that has come directly from Musk at increasing rates in the past year. This white man, whose net worth is close to a trillion dollars, ironically bemoans the dwindling power of his own kind. He incites fear of minorities and immigrants, spreads conspiracies about Jewish people, and reposts the writings of extreme thinkers celebrated in neo-Nazi circles. The damaging content on his platform undoubtedly emboldens others whose ideas used to be fringe and socially unacceptable. 

Fueling regression

Political polarization is a huge issue, but so is medical misinformation. Take for example, a new and alarming trend of freebirths – women eschewing medical care during childbirth. How far down the science-wary rabbit hole does a person have to go to believe that a birth without any assistance is the ideal, and to risk complications to the point of death? While vulnerable women around the world can only dream of the health support available in developed countries, social media has women voluntarily risking their health and wellness following the advice of poorly informed influencers who idealize a fictitious “natural way” of the past. Even Moses’ mom had a midwife.

We used to swim in the water of our communities, forced to develop relationships with those living in proximity to us and relying on the wisdom of local experts.

Now those whose opinions used to be fringe and largely intolerable have been affirmed in their thinking as they connect with others who share their harmful ideas. 

Trad wives are another example of the algorithm’s role in normalizing fringe thinking. This movement pressures women to turn back the clock on their rights – even their voting rights – in pursuit of a domestic lifestyle that is unobtainable for most women in today’s costly world. Most trad wives in the algorithm ironically hold high-income influencer careers while targeting working moms who must balance the competing priorities of finding both funds and time to feed their families. This chips away at the confidence of working moms.

The average white male’s ego is on the chopping block as well, thanks to the manosphere. The government of Canada defines the manosphere as “a group of online communities that share strict and often aggressive ideas about what it means to be a man” and targets young and vulnerable men, with over 40% of young men listening to these influencers.The manosphere works hard to keep a man’s self-esteem in check unless he’s willing to ruin his fertility, his body and his pocketbook in pursuit of a subjective view of physical perfection. Social media has been found to be strongly tied to a decrease in body image satisfaction and has led to an increase in cosmetic surgery for men alongside women. While magazines and TV were previously the biggest threat to satisfaction with our physiques, we’re now fighting a system designed to provide tailored discontent.

Finally, and in no way least of all, algorithms are designed to feed online addictions, providing a perpetually available “fix” and making abstinence, boundaries or detox extremely difficult. As a nurse, I’m pained by the growing engagement in violent sexual practices as pornography algorithms normalize behaviours that should be considered abusive and dangerous. Onlyfans brings in billions annually, feeding the human trafficking industry and degrading what should be a loving and intimate act between two people. Similarly, online gambling algorithms easily figure out what games and winnings draw the user in, caring nothing about the debt and ruined credit of their victims.

Better boundaries

The problems described here seem insurmountable. How do we, little beetles that we are, fight against the giants of algorithm-infused tech? Is it too late to take a stand and have an impact? 

Avoidance isn’t a practical option. Society has come to rely heavily on these tools. How does one search for information these days without an algorithm’s input? How do I keep up with school, sports and community updates without following Facebook accounts? How does a writer get noticed without a large social media following? While it might feel like the ideal solution is to avoid further feeding the coffers of Zuckerberg and Co., I struggle to function effectively today without them. 

We must find a way to live with social media algorithms, but we are not powerless. Through a profound path of trial and error, serious debrief with my therapist and healthy self-reflection, I have learned some strategies that help. I am striving to set up better boundaries on social media to prevent this soulless machine from taking over my thoughts, feelings and priorities. 

I think the most important strategy, more critical than anything else, is to remember that these systems aren’t neutral or altruistic. We must not forget the advertisers and political schemers who are behind the feed and the order of our search results, and the motivations that drive their decisions. We must learn to be remarkably discerning in what we consume, and humble in the conclusions we reach.

We also need to get good at refusing clickbait. I have had to work to retrain my Instagram algorithms by scrolling past unhealthy content. It is so easy to fuel the flames of outrage by watching a video that does nothing but affirm your sense of self-righteous brilliance while wondering at the foolishness of anyone who would disagree. There’s a never-ending supply of these videos. Retraining algorithms requires objectively considering what the content is doing to your thought patterns and choosing to limit engagement with content that isn’t helpful or healthy.

Curating content

Sometimes it also means taking a break. Uninstalling Facebook, Threads, X or Instagram can offer a breath of fresh air and some time to consider if these platforms are a net positive to your mind and soul. I’ve found benefit in looking up the accounts I need to follow rather than relying on scrolling through my feed. This way I can keep up with the city, schools and sports teams without getting sucked into an algorithm-influenced scrolling session. Curating your own news content can be done the same way by looking up balanced, non-algorithm-driven media sites that don’t cater to any particular political ideology.

We must forego the easy approach and put work into our online usage. We need to reflect on our feelings after we’ve interacted with content. There’s a place for being motivated by anger over injustice or humbled by increased awareness of the hurt in our world.

However, if we feel inappropriately angry, polarized, victimized, vindicated, insecure or unworthy, our next media consumption session should be chosen with a careful intention to put the algorithm back in its place. We must strive to follow those feeds and click on those sources who post thoughtful, sometimes challenging, but overall net-positive-on-the-soul content.

I think through this effort, at least on an individual level, we can be Davids (instead of beetles) who can, with God’s strength, take on what feels like an impossibly large Goliath.