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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
reflective
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
Algorithms drive everything online. Social media, influencing, music streaming, online shopping, news, books. Author argues that it is stifling culture by limiting what we are exposed to. Gets lost in some details but the points are well-taken.
informative
reflective
informative
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
ironically thanking the TikTok algorithm for recommending me this book that I ended up reading digitally (oops). But I’ve needed to read something like this, as someone who struggles with their own personal online habits (as Chayka says “we end up both overstimulated and numb”) I found this novel so reflective and informative, and this is going to be a push in changing my online habits and changing how i interact with everything.
highlighted quotes:
highlighted quotes:
‘Today, we are constantly contending with algorithms of all kinds, each one attempting to guess what we are thinking of, seeking, and desiring before we may even be aware of the answers.’
‘I inexplicably keep watching them, compelled in spite of myself.
The algorithm always wins.
controlled by a handful of unfathomably wealthy white men—the opposite of diversity.
We consume what the feeds recommend to us without engaging too deeply with the material.
We also adapt the way we present ourselves online to its incentives. We write tweets, post on Facebook, and take Instagram photos in forms we know will grab attention and attract likes or clicks, which drive revenue for the tech companies.
The technology limits us to certain modes of consumption; you can’t stray outside of the lines.
We’re encouraged to forget the presence of algorithms.‘ THIS, I’m going to be honest I NEVER (until now) think of the algorithm or how I see the contact that I see
“Knowledge itself is power,” Francis Bacon wrote in the sixteenth century, but in the Internet era, sorting knowledge might be even more powerful.
The recommendations, such as they are, don’t work for us anymore; rather, we are increasingly alienated by them.
We don’t actually own it and can’t guarantee accessing it in the same way each time.
My phone was glued to my hand as a tool to soak up any spare second of nonstimulation.
No one cares when you stop tweeting; the algorithm will simply slot in the content of some more willing participant, because, in Filterworld, everyone is replaceable.
because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s bad, and obscurity doesn’t make something de facto good.)
To resist Filterworld, we must become our own curators once more and take responsibility for what we’re consuming.
Smartphone screens allowed us to always carry the Internet around with us, and digital platforms’ feeds are what deliver the Internet to us.
Good exposition on how algorithms work to filter what people see in social media. Chayka also discusses in detail how algorithms effectively shape culture by forcing a common denominator effect by driving people to whatever is most popular. Chayka's solution is curation--adopting a curation mind-set. My solution is simpler--avoid social media like the plague.