For example, Tiktok, Instagram, etc. all have an “algorithm”. But what is that? Who creates it?
In: 4
Let’s pretend you have a BIG crush on someone, and no scruples at all. But you know you can’t just march up to them and tell them you want to be with them because you know that will be a huge turn off.
Instead, you bide your time. You watch their behavior. You notice they spend a lot of time looking at the pictures of their friend’s kids. They like to watch videos about cats. They like to research travel to Egypt and Jamaica.
Armed with this knowledge, you try to make yourself relatable. Next time you’re around them you’re like “Hey check this out – my cousin sent me the greatest picture of her kid. Ooops, that’s a picture of my cat, but here’s the kid picture.”.
Then you casually mention you’re saving for a trip of a lifetime, but you’re not sure where to go – Egypt, France, New Zealand, or Jamaica.
Ideally – your crush now realizes you have shared interests and things progress from there. Being extra creepy you keep gathering information about them and refine what you show them over time.
That is EXACTLY what the algorithms of most social media do – they look at what you ifnd interesting and measure your “engagement”. Maybe you spent 10 minutes on Facebook yesterday but today they showed you a video about mountain climbing and you spent 2 hours watching. Tomorrow you WILL see more of that, plus ads for gear for climbing, etc.
These algoriths are HIGHLY adaptive. If you suddenly decide to stop eating cheeseburgers and start to work out your ads will switch from fries to free weights rather fast.
And remember that bit where I mentioned 4 travel destinations instead of 2? That wasn’t an accident – it will continually throw out new options of things to show you trying to refine you down as far as possible for ad targeting. And you are willingly giving it to them when you use social media.
Edit: speeling
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