By this point, I’m sure ~ the algorithm ~ knows I’m not a big fan of, well… it. Not to mention everything it powers. And it seems to be trying to serve me content that recognizes that.
I’m not a big Instagram user, but recently it started serving me content that seemed to echo my feelings about digital technology.
In a video posted by livefromthetrees, an older man with a bushy white beard and an inviting smile let me know I’d scrolled far enough. I was done for the day, could put my phone down, and get on with my life — preferably by going out into nature. It’s a wholesome video, and brought a smile to my face.
My Instagram feed isn’t all that bad anyway. It’s a lot of golden retrievers, people with tattoos, Lord of the Rings content, and the occasional more lefty comedian (think people like Gianmarco Soresi). As I watched these videos of the old man in the woods, I started being served up similar videos. One featured a grandma asking for negative thoughts, dispeling them one by one, then batting them away with a baseball bat.
I wondered if I played these videos enough whether the algorithm would fill my feel with more of this uplifting content, but I also wondered how social media would feel if we saw more content like that than the polarized posts and AI slop increasingly filling people’s feeds. I don’t want to know everything about these people’s lives, but the brief moment they entered my world brightened my day.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think training an algorithm is the fix to our social media woes. But it also doesn’t have to be what people like Mark Zuckerberg have made it — prioritizing ad profits and engagement time over conviviality and actual connection.
Now, to this month’s recap. First, a very cool update on the book front: Hyperscale got a great review from Publisher’s Weekly. “Timely and persuasive, this revelatory account is difficult to ignore,” it says. Don’t forget to preorder your copy to get the full story on the data center boom, the communities it’s affecting, and why it doesn’t have to be this way.
Over on Tech Won’t Save Us, I also did some great interviews this past month. Thomas Dekeyser was on the show to unearth the history of people refusing new technology, while Hannah Cyrus and Alison Macrina explained how librarians are on the front lines of informing the public about technology (and helping them ditch AI). Check them out if you missed them!
The top 3 stories in this month’s recap look at the Summer of Ludd, snail-mail subscription clubs, and writers changing their styles in response to AI. Plus, find more important reads, and updates on labor, AI, data center news, and even more!
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I hope your summer (or winter) is going well!
— Paris
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