There are many problems with social media, of course. Well, it occurs to me that once you have started looking at a topic for a spell, today’s algorithms lock you into a feedback loop.
The Internet’s feedback loop can have a negative psychological effect. It seems the basic mechanism of many psychological problems is based on feedback loops (from the past) one cannot escape (in the present). If this is being re-enacted via the Internet, whether via social media, search engine results, or even one’s computer-phone these days, this structural miasma does not bode well for us, as individuals, as families, or as a society.
I don’t know when this started. Generally, I’m still new to social media. I did not use the Internet much for a while, when our children were born in ye olden times. This said, I just don’t remember the Internet being so predictable in the 1990s. It’s news to me, so to speak.
In sum, recurring thoughts, especially negative thoughts–that loop–is the stuff of psychological problems. Social media algorithms and maybe even search-engine algorithms, thus, may lock people into unhealthy repetitive mental habits via looking at the same, same, same.
Well, the rap song, “Not Today Satan,” by younger rappers KB & Andy Mineo, is a good anti-theme to this Internet phenomena. Their song’s linked here.
As they say: Not today Satan, NAH Nah Nah NAH Nah, nah-nah-nah-NAH!
Cheers,
G. H. Mosson
Maryland, USA