If you’re like most people, you’ve joined a social media network. You found the platform that you connect to the most. Whether this is because you and your closest friends use the same platform or maybe because you are geared more towards visual stimulation and enjoy videos posted online. If you’ve been online for quite some time now, it may be time to consider what kind of content you are absorbing online. Your homepage feed is your direct connection to how you feel about the platform you use. It’s where you get the most up-to-date posts from the people you follow and suggestions from the algorithm that is also getting to know you. But did you know that you also have control over what kind of content is being presented to you?
The friends and public profiles you follow are automatically presented on your home feed page. In addition, social media platforms have also started to create their own suggestions of posts they think you will like. These suggested articles are based on all the other posts you have liked and commented on. With their artificial intelligence, they have conjured up new posts for you to see that otherwise, you may not have seen if you weren’t following that profile already. (Malik, 2022) While you’re scrolling your homepage, you may notice that sometimes the things that come up on your feed are not actually pleasing to see. That’s because not everything that happens online aligns with your personal views and values. It may be time for you to take more control over what appears on your timeline.
While artificial intelligence and the people surrounding you are closely related to what happens in your life, their alignments may not be exactly in tune with your liking. In this case, it may be time for you to redefine what kind of content you are taking in. Are you noticing that as a new post scrolls up on your screen you are already cringing because of the person who posted it? As you’re watching a video play in your suggested post features, do you think to yourself, “I don’t know why this is on my feed?” Or maybe you were just coming to realize that you don’t need to take in all of the different aspects of a social media tyrant from a friend. If these thoughts have come to you, I believe it is time for you to start cleaning up your social media feed on your own.
There are many ways to help social media platforms dictate what kind of new posts come up on your timeline. If you and a friend, just don’t see eye to eye on politics it may be best to ultimately block this person. If you’re not ready to take those steps, you can “mute” or regulate what kind of posts you see from them. If these kinds of posts are coming up in your suggested post feature, there are ways for you to help the platform understand that you are not interested in that type of suggestion. In the settings of the suggested post, you should be able to select features like “show less of this”, or “I don’t wanna see this in my feed.” (Schwartz, 2022) While not all social media platforms are up to par with this kind of technology it is worth exploring and seeing how it may be helpful to what kind of information you were taking in on your feed on a daily basis.
If this kind of information is affecting you right now, please comment on the text below and let me know how this goes for you. If there’s a better way to do this on certain platforms, that information is very helpful and possibly could help somebody else as they scroll through their timeline. I wish you happy scrolling and gift you the ability to take more control over what information comes your way.
References
Malik, A. (2022, December 20). TechCrunch is part of the Yahoo family of brands. Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/20/tiktoks-tell-you-why-a-particular-video-appeared-in-for-you-feed/
Schwartz, D. (2022, July 27). Access Denied. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/27/1113932670/instagram-changes-suggested-posts
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