Your Life in the Algorithm : 10 Sept 24

In this edition: Related to young people - is social media like sex? How does big tech enable, and even support, extremism? And more...

I came across an academic headline this week that caught my attention: “Social media is like sex - young people need education, not unrealistic bans.” I’m not going to mention the publication, but you can search the headline if interested in the article.

Let’s be clear: social media is not like sex, although it can give users feelings of confidence, intimacy, pleasure - even power. But that’s in adults. There are no secrets about how sex works - it’s been studied since the Pharos. Educating children about sex is important because sex is a natural occurrence among all mammals.

Social media…is not a natural occurrence. It’s quite the opposite in almost every way. How it works wasn’t designed through the time-consuming evolution of an entire category of living beings. Every social media platform ever conceived was designed by very smart, very small groups of people, often far away from the populations they serve.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

The technology and processes social media platforms use to keep users engaged are sophisticated, continually evolving, and generally designed to extract time (engagement) for money (ads). But most importantly - most algorithms used by social media companies are secret. How do you educate discretion or abstinence if the educator doesn’t know what makes social media platforms as powerful, addicting, and engaging as they are?

We must not allow false equivalencies to emerge - even if they are promoted by experts and academics. Until parents, educators, and regulators are allowed to get under the hood of how these services target, cross-promote, and use data to serve their own interests, we’re flying blind.

Disagree with me? Ask a teenager how reproduction works - they can probably tell you. Ask them how their favorite social media site’s behavioral and content recommendation and manipulation algorithms work? I’d be very curious to hear their answer.

What you need to know this week

How influencers and algorithms mobilize propaganda — and distort reality - Nature - Sep 09, 2024
The engagement-fuelled logic of social media has bequeathed us a world in which what’s trending is a yardstick for what’s true.

Algorithms don't just pick playlists. They're changing your life - NPR - Sep 03, 2024
Humans hallucinate. Algorithms lie. At least, that's one difference that Joy Buolamwini and Kyle Chayka want to make clear. When ChatGPT tells you that a book exists when it doesn't – or professes its undying love – that's often called a "hallucination." Buolamwini, a computer scientist, prefers to call it "spicy autocomplete." But not all algorithmic errors are as innocuous.

‘My 14-year-old son was groomed into the far right while I thought he was playing video games’ - The Independent - Aug 25, 2024
Recounting her son’s radicalisation process, Lucy says he never shared his opinions on politics or current affairs for the first two years he was involved in the far right but his deeply concerning views then began to surface.

The internet makes it too easy to ‘fall down a rabbit hole of hate’. So, what works to curb online extremism? - The Conversation - Aug 25, 2024
Contemporary online environments enable extremism. Big tech digital platforms are designed for profit, rather than democracy. Engagement creates revenue and extreme content tends to increase engagement. The speed with which we can generate and share disinformation makes it harder than ever to distinguish fact from fiction.

What Mental Health Care Protections Exist in Your State? - ProPublica - Aug 27, 2024
Insurers have wide latitude on when and how they can deny mental health care. We looked at the laws in all 50 states and found that some are charting new paths to secure mental health care access.

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An “impetus” is something that makes a process or activity happen - or happen more quickly. The word also reminds me of two others I commonly wrestle with: impulsive and impatient. The Impetus of L.A. Fatzinger is my space to be impulsive with thoughts, impatient with ideas, and, along with the occasional favorable winds, clear skies, and a smattering of good luck, to move thoughts and ideas along more quickly. I hope it makes you think, laugh, and, as I always try to do, test your perspective.