How Are Social Media Algorithms Controlling You?

Social media knows you better than you know yourself—so who’s really making the choices?

Photo by Josh Withers on Unsplash

Let’s be real. Social media algorithms are smarter than we give them credit for.

They track, analyze, and predict what we’ll engage with before we even know it ourselves.

But the real question is:

Do they show us what we want to see? Or do they decide what we should see?

A little bit of both.

Think about it. You watch one video about productivity and suddenly your entire feed is filled with “wake up at 5 AM” routines and hustle culture content.

But if you click on just one conspiracy theory, good luck — your algorithm will take you down a rabbit hole you didn’t even sign up for.

Here’s how it really works:

Algorithms optimize for engagement, not your best interests.

They don’t care if what you’re watching is educational, controversial or downright useless — if it keeps you on the platform longer, they’ll keep feeding you more of it.