How Algorithms Work To Divide Society, and How To Prevent It

Almost everyone has a phone or a smart TV, a tablet or iPad, or even a smart toothbrush and smart mirror. We are more connected to each other than ever before, but division in society persists and worsens. With billions of people using the same apps, watching the same videos, and hearing the same sounds, one would think we would have unlimited exposure to consistently new ideas and information. However, anyone with TikTok knows that it shows you select things that the algorithm thinks you’ll like. This, however, does not only happen on social media websites to make sure you receive the cutest dog videos or the hottest makeup challenges. It results in a huge amount of division in society in a number of ways, and its effects are seen everywhere you look. 

Social media is pretty much essential if you want to avoid seeming like you live in a sewer. For online businesses, social media is the easiest and cheapest way for you to establish your brand and gain new customers. For celebrities, it is a fun way to engage with your fans in ways that you couldn’t before. For individuals, it is a way to follow people and brands you like and keep up with family and friends. However, we have been studying and feeling the negative effects of social media for years now, and the truth isn’t as pretty as all those filters would make you believe. First off, the filters themselves serve as a wonderful destructor of young people’s self-esteem. They change your facial features in subtle ways that trick your mind into thinking your body is ugly when you take the filter off. 

Another way that social media contributes to ill mental health is increasing the fear of missing out (FOMO), especially in young people. You see all your friends going to a party but you didn’t go, and it makes you feel left out and divided from the group. Similarly, while you compare yourself to filters and friends, you are also comparing yourself to celebrities who have tons of experience, money, and makeup (not to mention probably age differences). You begin to feel as if your life is less important or cool than theirs, when it really isn’t. This constant state of comparison gives you a sense of not belonging or becoming an outsider. 

Outside of social media, algorithms work to control what information you have access to and influence what you spend money on and where you spend it. Every media site and search engine has algorithms that show the most popular or “relevant” information at the top of the first page. These would normally go by number of clicks and how many people actually use these websites. However, once search engines and media sites figured out that they can charge money for people to show up first when people look for certain things, they began to take advantage of it (sensibly so). It is a good way for people to get their brand or company noticed, but it stops those who work just as hard from gaining the same attention by putting money first. Since studies show that the subconscious mind picks up far more information than the conscious mind, advertisements are valuable ways to sneak into people’s minds so they think of you when they look at a certain product or need a service. The purpose of advertising is to sell the consumer’s attention. This wouldn’t be bad if two important defining things didn’t happen: ranking of importance according to money paid for advertising and continuous streams of advertisements from the same rich companies.

Companies that are already well-established have a really bad habit of snatching up any good advertisement space they can. For example, Walmart has spent around 2 billion US dollars every year since 2009 except from 2011-2014, which was at 1.81 and 1.94 billion. And that’s just in the United States of America alone! How about Nike? In 2019 they spent 1.47 billion dollars for advertisement in the USA and 3.75 billion worldwide. As a result, you see their ads almost everywhere you look. In flyers, newspapers, news sites, social media, and on search engines. They pay their way constantly into your mind so you become a reliable income source for them. This creates a cycle of putting more money into ads and gaining more money from the consumers that see those ads. But, when you have billions of dollars to spare because you don’t pay your workers a living wage, it totally makes sense to use this on advertising so you can crush any small competitors before they even think of starting up. The more advantaged you are, the more advantaged you’ll continue to get. Since there aren’t any limits or rotations for frequency or size of certain companies’ ads, the big ones will be able to continue being the most prevalent. This doesn’t sound like a fair competition to me. You see the same ads from the same companies where you are already shopping so you cannot know about other, cooler, maybe better places that you could shop at. 

When you allow the permissions for apps and websites on your phone or computer, what do you think they use that information for? Most of the time, they use it to show you more content similar to stuff you search for and view often. This is how the algorithms on social media and search engines work. It is so personalized and advanced that they can see books and objects in the background of images and show them to you and other people who have seen other videos or pictures with similar books in them. 

Now, this may not, on the surface, seem like all that bad of a thing. If you like dog videos, why not see more cute dog videos? If you like tractors, why not see some ads for tractors? However, when our minds get used to seeing or hearing the same content over and over, we begin to think that it is inevitable and the only thing there is. This is the same thing that happens with myths (stay tuned for a future, more detailed post). Your brain hears the same thing over and over again and starts to believe it due to frequency rather than knowing that it isn’t true due to accuracy. It is also how you get a song stuck in your head, or keep on thinking of a joke after you’ve heard it a million times. For news and general informative content, this causes serious division between groups in society. 

People who enjoy different things are exposed to different kinds of information. They continue to see the same kinds of information, which often opposes the information that another group is exposed to. When people don’t get access to all sides of a story, they latch onto what they know and think of it as the truth. When people are exposed to different sides of the truth and their brains won’t help them piece together the whole truth, they disagree. This is caused by algorithms, social media, big advertising, and censorship in the media. Unfortunately, some of these things are very hard to avoid due to the need to make money, talk to people who aren’t in your area, or buy things. 

We are constantly consuming. We are consuming products, information, and advertisements all the time because of our electronics, connected lifestyles, and jobs. This isn’t a bad thing if we are careful, but there are negatives in everything. If we try to make the good outweigh the bad by trying to find new types of information from new perspectives, making sure we take mental health breaks, and by communicating with others in person as much as possible, we can reduce some of the negative effects of these practices and items on us. We can stop dividing ourselves in society and hating each other,and instead focus on common problems. 

Until next time, keep thinking outside the box, and keep reading in between!