Screen Time: Controlling Your Algorithm
Let’s face it, spending time on social media in 2024 is a bit of a nightmare. You never see half the things your friends post, it’s riddled with ads, and it’s impossible to log on without seeing something downright upsetting. It’s easy to feel like you don’t control the content of your feed. Luckily, that’s not the case.
Grabbing your personal algorithm by the reins is actually easier than you might think. Once you understand what drives an algorithm, you can pave a path in whichever direction you choose. So what drives an algorithm? Here’s a quote from yesterday’s blog:
Across all social media, in every single app, the algorithm exists for one reason, to keep users’ attention. See chronological feeds have an explicit problem, they end. A user viewing posts chronologically will eventually catch up to where they left off on their last scroll. But, if that user sees posts based on their interest, and is introduced to content from accounts they don’t follow, they can scroll forever. So what does the algorithm want? It wants users to stay on the app.
All you need to do to point your algorithm in the right direction is be intentional with your screen time. When you see something you like, a post from a relative, art from a friend, etc, stop and smell that digital rose. Click on it, share it with someone who might like it, or just hover your screen on it for an extra second or two. When you see something you don’t like, something you want to see less of, something awful, close the app. Leave the website, refresh the page, unfollow or disconnect from its source.
This is not some ploy for engagement, (though I yearn for that side effect) this is very real. Think of what we established at the beginning of our series on screen time: screen time equals value. Algorithms are designed to maximize that value. It’ll serve you whatever it thinks you’ll like, you just need to tell it. The easiest way to communicate with your algorithm is screen time, but the most effective way is engagement.
Next week, we’re going to walk through five social media and deep dive into their interpretations of screen time. Thanks for following along with this blog series, I’ve really enjoyed writing it! A friendly reminder that you can have every issue of this blog sent directly to your inbox by signing up here.
Have a great weekend!
-MC
This article is the third in a series of blog posts about Screen Time. If you missed the first blog of this series, you can read it here. 