How Algorithms Rule Your World

Monday. 9am.

Is that my alarm that’s just gone off? Gross. I roll over to turn it off and straight away my beloved phone is back in my hand after 8 hours of sleep sadly put distance between us.  I instantly check my notifications on the home screen (some habits can’t be broken… oops) and it’s all information relating to ME. It’s like a world of material designed to fit my life – the Snapchat notifications from my friends, the YouTube suggestions from the latest channels that I am subscribed to and even the weather for in my location for the day ahead.  Every time I tap the screen, personalised information appears. I’m sure you can relate to your phone producing information unique to you and that I’m not stuck in some digital dystopia where my every move is tracked.  How can a phone possibly know such aspects of our everyday lives and generate such customised and personal content? Should we be worried?

Wednesday. 2pm.

 ‘Continue watching Peep Show’. I AM TRYING TO DO UNI WORK. ‘Suggestion for Carla’ ahhha stop! It’s almost as if Netflix wants me to procrastinate and fail. How can this be?

The digital word that is readily available at our finger tips makes use of algorithms. Now, unless you’re into maths or computer science then algorithms may sound like a totally different language. However, algorithms use mathematical rules to study how a set of data behaves. Google and other platforms are highly powerful tools that allow us to locate whatever information we desire. But they also locate whatever information about us that they desire. Algorithms in the digital world are essentially computer codes that use information about us to determine what we like and it then makes recommendations (just like Netflix did for me). These recommendations are usually based off of our internet searches and through cookies which also collect data about you. I’m sure you can relate to clicking on a website where cookies appear. I think we can collectively agree that we all just press ‘I agree’ so it disappears and you can continue browsing (I know I do).

Algorithms and cookies make way for an interesting discussion point. Technology is so advance that whatever we do is recorded and reported. Is it clever that technology has reached a point where Netflix knows that I need to carry on watching a certain show; or that Spotify thinks I should listen to M.O.M Radio just because I listened to that song by Spillage Village? Or are algorithms and cookies distorting our world view? Do they allow us to live in a world where the information we long for is shaped by what the internet thinks we want to know, rather than what we actually should know?

Perhaps it is time to realise that the internet nowadays isn’t a lens of online information, but rather a mirror of our own information.

Feel free to post any comments and discuss your ideas or these ideas further 🙂