That Icky Feeling You're Getting on the Internet

I really struggled writing this post. I think it’s because I want to come off as some kind of social media expert, but as I was writing, I realized I’m also a victim. There are lots of topics to cover— like doomsday scrolling on Twitter, Instagram’s constant updates taking control away from their users, Tiktok’s algorithm targeting my precise secrets and fears, conspiracy stuff creeping into mainstream outlets, etc. etc. It’s all starting to take a toll on me. I used to be able to scroll with a certain detachment, but I find myself actively avoiding certain subjects because I don’t think my mental health can handle it. And I’m not someone who ever thought they had mental health issues before. I fear that the combination of the content and the mechanics of how it’s delivered are colliding in a way that’s just making everything feel particularly bleak. I kept asking Leah as I was writing— can you read this to make sure I don’t sound crazy?? My uncertainty is also a product of what’s happening. More and more, social media serves up what they think we want to see, so we’re all stuck wondering— is this everyone’s experience? Or is it just me?

Let’s start with Instagram, which you guys know I love and adore. Both for personal and business reasons. I enjoy creating content there, I love the community I’ve found and I’ve been lucky to figure out a way to earn a living doing it. I feel very invested in their continuous success.

That being said, I hate the direction Instagram is going. I’m not alone. The evolution of Instagram seems to be universally hated. With each update, the backlash grows. People don’t like the focus on video, they don’t like the full screen scroll (which Instagram just rolled back), they don’t like all the recommended accounts showing up in their feed and they definitely don’t like the fact that we no longer see content from our friends and family. So why does Instagram continue to head in this direction? Adam Mosseri argues that the reason we don’t like any of this stuff yet is because their AI isn’t good enough at figuring out what we each want to see. Once Instagram AI improves (translation: gets as good as Tiktok), everyone will love spending more time on Instagram.

Here’s the problem with Mosseri’s logic: what’s good for Instagram is not necessarily good for their users. He’s being pretty transparent with the fact that they are measuring success by time spent on the app. To get users to spend more time on Instagram, they appear to have switched their strategy to prioritize consumption over connection, because watching a continuous stream of videos has the potential to keep you on the app longer than checking in on a set amount of family and friends. But he’s falsely assuming that more time spent on the app means you are enjoying your Instagram experience, which is not the case.

People say they like looking at photos, but Instagram knows that video is more engaging, so that’s why they are focusing on reels. It’s not what you want, it’s what Instagram knows will keep you on the app for longer. People say that they want a chronological feed. What does a chronological feed have besides a guarantee that you will see all the stuff your friends and family want you to see? It has a beginning and an end. A healthy outro. Instagram wants your feed to be endless. It wants to make it harder for you to step away. Why does Instagram say that it’s focusing on creators? Is it because they care about their most engaged users profiting off their work? No. Creators are a tiny fraction of the people on Instagram. They care about creators because they are the ones making all the content that will keep you on the app. That’s why Instagram is literally paying creators to make the reels they know their followers don’t want.

When Instagram copied Snapchat and added stories, they didn’t take away the original feed. They added an option. They tried to do reels as an option, but people didn’t choose to watch them, so Instagram decided to force them on us instead. Have you ever followed a funny meme account and then all of a sudden an apparel company buys it and starts pushing merch, and then suddenly you’re like— WAIT. I didn’t sign up for this! That’s what Instagram is attempting to do. It’s a bait and switch.

Mosseri has maintained that users want video, even if they say they don’t. “Even if we do nothing, the trend starts favoring more video.” Tiktok’s exponential growth (both in downloads and time spent) is certainly proof that Mosseri is right. But Tiktok and Instagram are very different platforms. And the main difference is not Tiktok’s full screen video scroll while Instagram still supports photos, it’s a difference in user control. Tiktok’s popularity is based on continuous entertainment. The algorithm decides what you want to see next (with remarkably accuracy), giving their users very little power over their experience and making it wildly addictive. This might feel okay for younger users whose first experience with social media is Tiktok, but for an older generation of Instagram users— we can feel our agency being stripped away and we don’t like it.

And here’s the thing. The reason we all bought into social media in the first place is for the connection and the community. That’s literally the value add. Nobody wants it to be more addictive. Or more stimulating. Nobody is trying to figure out a way to dedicate more time to it. We all know that social connection is good for us but too much screen time is bad. Most of us have probably stuck with Instagram all these years precisely because we’ve figured out how to have a healthy relationship with it. But to Instagram, having a healthy relationship with their app means they are losing the social media battle. They want more of your time and attention. So, in addition to focusing on video, they are working on perfecting their algorithm. And let me tell you, as someone who spends more time on social media than most because I make a living by keeping up with these things, it’s not just the amount of time spent on Tiktok that’s worrisome, it’s where the algorithm goes when you give it too much power.

Let me back up and explain how I got here. For the last 12 years, I’ve spent most of my time on social media creating content, as opposed to consuming it. I always thought it was a pretty self-centered approach to the internet, but I think it may have actually fostered a healthy relationship with it. When I engage on Instagram or Facebook, it’s mainly with the people who follow me, responding to what I have chosen to put out there. I learned early on that I don’t like divisive topics (a post about whether kids should or should not be allowed to go up the slide almost broke me), so I’ve always kept things noncontroversial, except on a few issues that really matter to me. I actually like responding to direct messages the most, because people are generally happy to get a response and writing a private message feels very low pressure. So, I guess you could say, I operate mainly in an online bubble. A very supportive, like-minded, wholesome bubble.

It wasn’t until Tiktok and now reels, that I started feeling like I needed to consume content to be able to create it, since most of it is based on trends and popular song choices. I downloaded Tiktok so I could understand what to post, and then I quickly became a regular user. It was very entertaining for awhile. But as you spend more time on it and the algorithm gets to know you, I found that it can become really manipulative and take me places I don’t want to go. For instance, Tiktok has decided I need therapy, I probably have ADHD, I’m an absolute idiot for paying so much to live in an apartment in NYC, I’ve been tricked by a capitalist society into thinking that productivity is my main measure of success, I’ve wasted my whole life attaching my self worth to my weight, but don’t worry, none of this matters anyway because we’re in the middle of an extinction event and are you still up watching Tiktok? Maybe you need to buy this supplement to combat your sleep anxiety and oh my god make it stoppppppp.

I’ve found that even when I recognize I don’t like what I’m watching, I have a hard time shutting down the app. Or I’ll shut it for a bit, but then I’ll come back hoping the experience will be different this time. But it’s always the same. It starts with the funny viral videos that make you laugh, it goes to some unexpected fun places and then it’s back to exploiting all my doubts and fears. I guess existential crisis tiktok keeps me watching for longer, so that’s what I’m served up when they think I might log off.

On Instagram, because they are making constant updates and I’m trying to figure out my next steps, I’ve been consuming more there too. I’ve noticed a few accounts that I used to follow for parenting and lifestyle have taken a turn into questionable content. I unfollowed a few and kept a few to keep my tabs on them. I think it was the Johnny Depp trial that really threw me over the edge, because I started to think the entirety of the Depp coverage was a PR campaign that took advantage of the Me Too backlash by using right leaning influencers to spread their message. Even if they might not be self identifying as right leaning. Or political at all. The tone of one particular account was veering so dangerously into conspiracy land, it made me deeply uncomfortable. I could recognize dog whistles, and yet, I kept refreshing. I told myself I was watching as a healthy grounded skeptic, but then got nervous that I was fooling myself into thinking I wasn’t susceptible. I knew I did not trust the source, so why was it so hard to unfollow?

This experience gave me a better understanding of how people get sidetracked into dark corners of the internet. Or roped into conspiracy theories. Or even radicalized. They don’t start there. There is always a pipeline. To be clear, I always understood that the internet can be a scary place. There are blogger takedowns on GOMI, toxic masculinity on 4Chan, white supremacist groups on Telegram, pedophiles scouring YouTube and god knows what else. I knew this stuff was out there. But I’d never seen it creep up before into the places I considered safe.

Because I live in NYC, I get a ton of NYC content on Tiktok. Probably once a day I’m hit with a story about the uptick in crime or how scary the subway is right now. I also have a lot of friends on the Citizens app (a social app that will have more crime reported the more popular the app becomes) and believe the constant chatter about crime was one reason many of them decided to leave the city. It’s also the reason a lot of people are saying they don’t want to come back into the office or use public transport. But then yesterday, someone pointed me to the chart below from Bloomberg News, which shows that media coverage of crime is way up while the crime rate still remains relatively low:

In the article, they argue that perception of crime, driven largely by a younger generation on social media, is just as bad for the city’s recovery as actual crime.

So, what to do when Instagram is suddenly delivering politics from dubious sources and Tiktok is skewering your perception of reality? I used to go to Twitter for all my trusted news sources. I remember back in 2016 when my entire Twitter feed was united in one common goal— getting Trump out of office. But then Biden got elected and nobody in my Twitter feed could agree on anything anymore. I get it. Some people want fast change while others think you get nowhere if you aren’t willing to compromise. But I think as the years have passed, the more moderate voices have faded to the background and more extreme voices have remained. Some I agree with, some I think take things too far, but all have one thing in common. THE WORLD IS ENDING. Whether it’s the death of democracy or the destruction of the planet, the end is nigh. Is this true or alarmist? I have honestly lost my ability to tell.

The only thing that can make me feel worse than doom scrolling on Twitter is the algorithm leading me to Anti-America tiktok. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, my For You Page was dominated by people bashing America for regressing. I get it. I was angry too. There were Tiktoks about how this was beginning of the erosion of all women’s rights, Tiktoks about the failing state of our democracy, Tiktoks about the perils of late stage capitalism, Tiktoks from around the globe from people who felt bad for us, Tiktoks about Americans choosing to up and move their whole family out of the country and did you know that you could buy a house in Italy for $1? And live in a little fishing village with a farmer’s market and eat gelato on a cliffside overlooking the ocean every day? Your kids will be so much happier there! With gelato, cheaper housing, free healthcare, less homework and reproductive rights! OH MY GOD I NEED TO GET OUT OF AMERICA!!!!

Actually, upon research, I found out that Italy seems to be walking back reproductive rights too. Which brings me to my next point. I was listening to Pivot, a podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway (FYI, I listen regularly even though I can’t stand either one of them and think they are possibly the most pompous duo alive) when Scott made a really alarming point. You know how people say they won’t join Tiktok because it’s owned by a Chinese company? I always assumed the risk is that the Chinese have our private information. What would they do with that? No worse than Zuckerberg, I told myself. And why would China care about ME??? But Galloway made the point that Tiktok could very easily tweak their algorithm to favor anti-American sentiment, so the risk isn’t being personally and specifically targeted, it’s a more general feeling of growing discontent across all their users in the States. FUUUCKKK. Now, nobody knows if Tiktok is actually doing this, but it definitely illustrated to me the power these companies have over our thought process and the real world consequences that could unfold as a result. Almost the same way Russia used facebook to disseminate right wing propaganda, China could use Tiktok to target the left. And they wouldn’t even have to create content to disseminate, because we are already making it ourselves. It just becomes infinitely more powerful when it’s coming at you from different people, across a broad range of topics in a continuous scroll.

I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but I’ve scaled back on my political commentary lately. I’m still paying attention to what’s happening in the world, but I’m going back to more traditional sources and limiting the chunks of time I spend consuming it. I also like catching up in the morning as opposed to keeping myself up by doom scrolling at night. I now know that posting something about an issue, let’s say abortion, means that I’m going to get served up a continuous stream of abortion content on all my social channels. When that happens, I need to be prepared to step away. I’ve decided that my sanity depends on having stuff to do online that’s light and entertaining and if that’s not what I’m getting served up, I’m just going to create it myself. Maybe the people who follow me need that too.

On Tiktok, I’ve stopped scrolling to figure out the trends. I actually found that once I started making videos that I wanted to make, instead of trying to figure out what does well over there, I’ve been more consistent and successful. Added bonus— I’m not on tiktok as much anymore. I get in, post, watch a few videos and get out. I also found out you can long hold on a Tiktok video and click “not interested.”

Over on Twitter, I’ve made an effort to find the comedians and mom bloggers who used to fill my feed before 2016. And when I see a funny tweet on the same day as something horrible, instead of thinking, “Wow, you are so tone deaf, don’t you know what’s happening in the world????” I think, this person probably knows exactly what is going on and needs to maintain their sanity too.

I’ve stopped following a bunch more Instagram accounts, including all the true crime accounts. I don’t need to know about every father who decides to shoot up their family. Or the single mom who was dragged away in a garbage bag. It’s an isolated incident and I’m not going to solve the crime. I’ve added a few more people to my favorites feed and mainly use that for scrolling. If I’m feeling disconnected, I post something on my own story so I get a bunch of direct messages from the people I like to read instead.

It’s like back in 2015, when I realized seeing babies in my feed was making me sad. My kids were getting older and I didn’t like feeling nostalgic for the newborn phase. It sounds harsh but I was intentional in unfollowing pregnant people I didn’t know personally, scrolling right through baby photos without a heart and trying not to click on anything resembling a cute onesie in my discover page. That’s also when I started #thebigkidyears to bring more parents with older kids into my online bubble. You have to be really intentional with what you want to see online and know that the platforms are actively working against you. What keeps you on Instagram and Tiktok past the point of it being mindless fun is never going to be something good. If you get to that place, it’s probably time to log off.

If all else fails, you know what continues to be great for a social media break? Wordle. And Quordle. And Octordle. And Septordle. And Mordle. I think the popularity of these games is because they are something to do on your phone that won’t make you feel like the world is ending.

Or… and I know this one is crazy, there’s also putting the phone down and going to sleep.

I’d love to know if you can relate to any of this. Does the internet feel ickier lately to you too? How do you make sure you stay informed and connected, but also take care of yourself?

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