The first time I had ever heard the term algorithm used was when I went through formal sorority recruitment here at Seton Hall. They told us that they put our information and rankings, plus the sororities information and rankings into an algorithm to determined where we stood. As a freshman, and with a major that I thought had no use of algorithms, I dismissed the logistics behind how everything was computed that weekend.
The second time I heard the term algorithm was when a friend of mine was explain how an Instagram timeline worked. When I first created my personal Instagram, content was organized based on the time users posted; But what my friend was trying to explain was that this was changing, and Instagram, among many other social media websites, had decided to use an algorithm to determine what content users would be seeing. All I could think was, wow this seems really confusing, and turns out, I wasn’t wrong!
An algorithm is a “clearly defined and calculated repeatable process, most often used by computers to solve problems.” Social media creators have instilled algorithms into their websites and applications to sort through content and to attempt to predict what their users want to see based on engagement. From what you like, the time you spend reading a post, what you click on, all the things you do when interacting with a post are taken into account for the algorithm.
This is all in hopes that you enjoy what you see on social media, enticing you to come back later and leave you wanting more. The problem with this is that if the algorithm doesn’t think you’ll want to see certain content, you have to go seek it out very specifically. The algorithm doesn’t take into account environmental factors, so we can see how several problems arise with algorithms used by social media.
By remembering to diversify your searches, posts, and engagement, you become less predictable for the algorithm. In doing this you create a wider variety of items seen on your timeline or feed.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you beat the algorithm at its own game.
From Nicole's Perspective 