YouTube Videos That Resonate Right Now
It feels like you can't escape the news and the world right now (and perhaps maybe you shouldn't...). My take is that it's worth having a healthy perspective of how to interact with social media, the various algorithms, and the news cycle. I've found these videos to be really helpful, not only in understanding the impact of social media, but also how to interact with it in a way that better serves ourselves. I want to urge you to give them a chance or at least put them on in the background. I've created a playlist of the videos, for this blog post to make it even easier. Let's dive in and I'll explain as I go.
1) A Healthy Interaction With ~Your~ Algorithm
Technology Connections' most recent video: "Algorithms are breaking how we think" (37m 51s)
Technology Connection's videos are always an incredible source of deep information and understanding of the various technologies we interact with. His latest video is no different. I've been feeling the pain of the "enshitification" of the internet and social media, but TC gave me some much-needed perspective on how I am interacting with these various feeds of information. He coins the term "algorithmic complacency" which he explains that many people are "so used to algorithmically-generated feeds that they no longer care to have a self-directed experience that they are in control of." He goes on to say, "More and more people don't seem to know or care how to view the world without a computer algorithm guiding what they see."
Every service has moved further from a sensical, chronological feed of information from people you chose to follow to a feed that has the specific desire to keep you maximally engaged with the site as long as possible in order to serve you more and more ads. Doom-scrolling again for hours? That just made the company another $100 dollars of ad revenue. The systems are not designed to help us find good content, they are instead designed to keep us engaged.
So, how do we deal with that? Well, one suggestion TC makes, in the context of YouTube itself, is instead of using the home page to find videos, use your "Subscriptions" page to find videos specifically from creators you are following. To expand on that idea, you can apply the same principle to other social media platforms. Bluesky offers a "following" feed that is exclusively people you follow. Even TikTok has a "following" feed! Doing this allows you more agency into what content you are digesting as well as being your own vetted and curated feed by you yourself. TC goes on to say, "I still discover new accounts all the time, but through stuff the ones I'm following have shared." So even if you focus on your "following" feed, you can still discover new accounts and content, but it will be through your curated-by-you feed.
Of the videos I'm recommending today, this one I feel is probably the most important.
TL;DW or R: - Use more of your "following" or "subscriptions" feeds to find content - Use the people you are following to discover new accounts and content
2) Adjusting Your Window of Tolerance
Reject Convenience's most recent video "What if you can't reject convenience?" (12m 41s)
Like Technology Connections, Reject Convenience is a great source of information and insight into the internet, privacy, and, well, rejecting convenience. Most known for switching to a "dumb phone", RC's latest video is actually a short response video to the comments he received about the fear and uncertainty around rejecting smart devices.
RC explains the concept of the Window of Tolerance. Watch the video for a much better explanation, but the idea is you have to understand what you are capable of tolerating when it comes to a specific change you want to make. One of the examples provided is about using the app Instagram. You might personally feel uncomfortable using Instagram, but your friends and family might not be able to leave it behind. You could delete instagram, but that might mean you lose connections to certain friends and family. RC suggests that you can adjust your tolerance of the situation by reviewing some of the privacy settings within the app itself. RC further suggests that in some cases, you may even be able to convince your friends and family to communicate with a different app that you all agree on. No matter what your level of tolerance is, RC suggests you can find ways to make changes to make you feel a bit more comfortable but also not go too extreme to feel completely cut off.
Give it a watch. And maybe check out RC's other videos to learn a bit more about privacy and the internet.
3) Big Brother Is Influencing You AND Watching You
Philosophy Tube video "TikTok vs Democracy" (39m 28s)
Our last video for today is from Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube. She has quickly become one of my favorite subscriptions on YouTube. She delivers the information in such a fun and clear way. Her videos are so well done with such incredible details including costumes, sets, props, and more. Each video comes with a bibliography of sources and references.
In this video, she breaks down many issues, but one of the first is "information overload" -- how we become complacent in our learning news and ideas with so much information constantly being blasted into our eyes. We are unable to dig further than a quick headline and a short tweet.
She also talks about how social media social movements, like Occupy Wallstreet, lack the leadership and staying power due to them spreading so quickly that the movement has no chance to organize and build resiliency. They come and go but don't seem to have any staying power.
Next, she goes on to explain how social media is unable to hold people accountable for anything. She elaborates that the systems have been designed in such a way that there is no specific one individual to hold accountable for the issues that exist.
Finally, she elaborates on the topic of "surveillance capitalism" and how social media platforms and other tech companies have your data & information and then use that information to predict if and when you will purchase something. Furthermore, they can then use that information to begin to modify your behavior by slowly influencing you via those served ads or algorithms. She then draws this same concept to politics and governments. If companies are capable of predicting and modifying your behavior, why couldn't the government do the same?
My Parting Thoughts
It's been made clear through not only these videos but also my specific experiences on the internet that I no longer want to have my agency with information, knowledge, and ideas taken away from me. I do not want to slowly be manipulated into a way of thinking or be stuck scrolling for hours to feed a metric that gives companies more and more dollars just for my time. I want to connect with my peers and develop my own ideas and opinions based on my own beliefs. We are subjected to so much information that at some point, even the correct, real information is treated as false or worse, unimportant. How can we care when everything feels like a fire or a meme. We've been lulled into laziness and complacency.
As I encountered these concepts, it made me wonder how do we address these issues? Do I beg my friends to swap to other forms of communication? Do I educate more people on these thoughts and beliefs? Do I learn more and more tech skills so that I'm better equipped to protect myself? Is it time to start tearing apart how routers work to learn how I can prevent any piece of my data getting into the hands of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos? It feels so extreme, but at the same time it feels important to try.
I'm not sure if we have the best right answer today. But I don't want to blindly walk forward continuing to serve the larger systems and machines that aren't serving me.
I hope you were also able to get a little something out of these videos or this blog. It's not all doom and gloom, you do have some control and agency over what you digest and who you share it with. Hold on to that hope and find others who do the same.