Get out of the corporate internet bubble!
Over the years, but especially during the pandemic, and mostly for the young people, the perception of The Internet gradually shrinked to a handful of apps controlled by a handful of companies.
These are:
- TikTok
- Meta
- Threads
- Google
- Youtube
- Google search/maps/photos/drive/docs/sheets
- Twitter/X
(Plus these communicators)
- Discord
- SnapChat
- Telegram
The addictive nature of the apps providing an infinite scrollable feed of short form media took away the attention capacity of users, often rendering them unable to use any other, less stimulating forms of information sharing.
As a result, these apps became the only source of information the users are able to consume, and therefore, these apps began to control what a vast number of internet users see and know about the world around them.
Through this the companies controlling TikTok, Meta, Google and Twitter can influence worldviews of the massess, promote certain sentiments, and for example affect elections.
That’s one thing. The other thing is - they can significantly influence the mental health and wellbeing of their users.
If you open Twitter, or any Meta app, You will see in your feed, through “promoted” or “suggested” a certain kind of content that “The Algorithm” wants you to see.
It’s as if there’s this little television set in your pocket, and someone else is controlling the programming.
Doomscrolling impacts the quality of your life
The algorithm naturally promotes what “clicks” well, what gathers engagement, comments, likes, shares. We had this kind of media before. It was tabloids and scandal-fueled gossip magazines. Whatever triggers the lowest of human instincts, usually clicks well and might have a chance of making the publisher a buck or two through advertising.
So it’s not an accident that we named the process of being stuck in a loop of short-form media fed by these apps the “Doomscrolling”.
The vast majority of this promoted content is what sat so well with the thousands before us. War. Crime. Fear.
It also makes us miserable.
Why is the algorithm like that? Because that’s how it makes more money. At the cost of your mental health.
// TODO: Add a paragraph about social-media-induced eating disorders
What can we do?
First and foremost: Get the control back.
Get out of the apps where you have no control over the content you are being fed. Drop the IG, X, Threads, FB, and Youtube. Drop anything that has “An Algorithm” that does not serve you, but its masters.
Are there any apps outside of the bubble?
- Use decentralized social networks where you can make your own feeds
- https://joinmastodon.org/
- https://bsky.social
- Use decentralized communicators that are not controlled by a single company
- https://matrix.org/
- For coders - use code sharing platforms that do not belong to Microsoft (Github does)
- https://codeberg.org/
Extra links
- https://www.navidrome.org/ - self hosting music streaming
- https://www.plex.tv/ - centralizing/proxying streaming services (does that drop the “suggested” feeds in the process?)
- https://disroot.org/en/about - NL initiative promoting alternatives to “walled gardens”
- https://federated.nexus/ - CA initiative hosting Matrix and Forgejo