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Algorithmic Feeds


I hate algorithmic feeds. I have always told myself that "hate" is a word that should be avoided. But I hate algorithmic feeds. They are only designed to keep me scrolling and clicking. They show me posts that make me angry, posts that make me sad, and posts that make me feel like I am not good enough.

Over the years, I have been on and off social media, and I have learned not to give in to those feelings. I don't think I let them affect me as much anymore, but that is not good enough. The best solution would be to quit social media altogether, but I don't want to do that. For now, I have decided to limit my use by removing social media apps from my phone and participating less. I won't post or comment, although I will still read and occasionally like posts.

At the time of writing, Wikipedia's list of the ten most-visited websites1 are (in order): Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, ChatGPT, X, Reddit, Bing, TikTok, and WhatsApp. The ranking only counts web traffic, not app traffic, but six of the ten are social media platforms built around algorithmic feeds and infinite scroll: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, and TikTok.

I think we spend far too much time on these platforms. It is not that we are unaware of the negative effects. The problem is that awareness alone is rarely enough to overcome products designed to hold our attention. In that sense, they remind me of sugar, alcohol, and cigarettes. We know that they are bad for us, and that we should limit or even completely avoid them, yet here we are, consuming away anyway.

This problem is not only contained to the younger generation. I see many adults in their 50s and 60s that are just as addicted to social media as teenagers. There are many governments dicussing the regulation of social media platforms2 for children, but I think that adults need to be included in those discussions just as much as children.

Removing infinite scroll and feeds that update in real time would be a good start. Over the past few years, I have used websites like Hacker News and Lobsters, which have neither personalized feeds nor infinite scroll, and I find that I rarely go past the first page. Even though the content is not personalized, it often feels more interesting and relevant to me. In the future, I would like to see more websites adopt this model. I also hope that more of us will start blogging—and actively using RSS—again.

I am mostly writing this to vent my frustration. I wish we would ban the combination of algorithmic feeds and infinite scroll on social media platforms. At the very least, platforms could refresh their recommendations only once every 12 hours and present them as a finite list. You could reach the end, close the app, and know that there is nothing new waiting for you until later.

  1. "List of most-visited websites", URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-visited_websites, Wikipedia, retrieved 2026-09-01.

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  2. I highly disagree with implementation of age verification for social media platforms, but that is a topic for another time.

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