Algorithms (Day 10)

Algorithms.

What a cool word.

Let me introduce an interesting fact: You are not seeing everything your friends post. Now, this is actually a pretty good thing, because if you have hundreds of Facebook friends, and each one posted just one thing every day, you'd have to scroll your feed for hours and hours every day to see all of it. Facebook has an algorithm to fix that. The people you interactive with most (and even liking a post is interacting) are the ones you will see most in your feed. Facebook takes note of who you interact with, and who you don't. Then they use that info to determine whose posts you see most, or least. As an example, I have one person from overseas that I interact with daily, and since I like something they share almost every day, they are always in my feed. This works to my advantage, because I get to see their posts daily. Other people I don't interact with often (if ever) rarely appear in my feed. They are still on my friend list, but I never see the things they post. Also, if someone I interact with daily does not interact with me, I gradually disappear from their feed, even if they appear in mine every day.

Eventually, people you rarely interact with completely disappear from your feed. Facebook puts them "out of sight, out/out of mind", if you will.  Then, one day, out of the blue, you remember one of them for some reason, get curious, and go to their page. You scroll for a moment, see something you like, and like it. The next day, they have appeared in your feed again; as if from nowhere. It throws you, because you have forgotten what it's like to see them in your feed. Don't worry, though--if you don't interact with their posts, they'll vanish again in a couple of days.

It occured to me that this is as lot like life. The people you interact heaviest with are naturally the ones you care about most, and the ones you want to keep closest to you. (Whether they are loved ones, or secretly dispised.) You want to know everything they do, whether good or bad. For people you only casually care about, you may only speak to them every once in a while, and so you only really want to see them if they are doing something that affects you, benefits you, or that you might find particularly fascinating. People you don't interact with at all are usually people who don't share in your life, and so you really don't need to hear about theirs either. (Maybe every once in a while, just to confirm they are okay, but for the most part, you have filed them away.) It doesn't mean you don't love them, they are just not at the top of your list anymore.

Facebook understands this, and so if you interact with someone daily, their posts show up in your feed daily. If you only casually interact, their posts only show up occasionally. If you hardly ever interact, you will only see a post of theirs once in a blue moon. When those "blue moon" posts show up from those people you don't interact with, you either scroll past it, and they vanish for another blue moon, or you "like" it, and they show up again the next day.

Facebook's algorithm has another aspect. This one involves keywords.** If Facebook sees you regularly interact with posts that involve SEC college football, for example, (especially if it's a specific team) when someone (regardless of how often you interact with them) posts a status that involves that team, magically, it appears in your feed.  

**You may have noticed this blog post showed up in your feed when you hadn't seen me in forever, just because I included those extraneous keywords in the nonsensical last sentence I put in the status involving this post.

In a way, this is also like life. If someone you rarely interact with suddenly says something about something that you are passionate about, you take interest immediately!

"Why is Karen suddenly so interested in________? That's MY thing!"

"Who the heck does Jessica think she is talking about my husband? She better keep his name out of her mouth!"

Five minutes ago, you didn't even think about Karen or Jessica, but now they are VERY important, indeed! Of course, as soon as you see Karen was only mentioning her thing in passing, and actually had no real interest in it, all is well. When you figure out Jessica was talking about another person with your husband's name, you sigh in relief, and forget about it. Then they vanish from your "feed" again.

Facebook understands the psychology of human behavior, and they have implemented it into their algorith they use for determining what shows up in people's feeds. They want you to keep coming back every day, after all, so you can see the ads they have used even more algorithms to determine will show up in your feed.

Like the one for Oreo cookies that your phone heard you mention yesterday while you were in the cookie aisle at the store. (Yep. That's a thing. Big Brother is watching you.)

So where does this post end? Dear heavens, is it over yet? The point in this blog post has nothing to do with Facebook's algorithm. It has to do with your algorithm.

Every day, you go about your daily ritual of interacting with the same people, over and over. Some you "check in" on or speak to every day. Some you only talk to once a week. Some you rarely ever talk to. For the most part, those people are just as content with this frequency of interaction as you are. Some of them want to hear from you every day, some of them don't. However, there is another group of people. Friends you once spoke with or interacted with daily, but overtime, you found new interests, and prioritized accordingly. Or perhaps the person was going through a bad patch, or dealing with emotional baggage, and their posts were killing your buzz. You come to Facebook to be entertained, not get bad vibes. So you hid them from your feed.

My first blog post (Day 1) got 87 views in just the first 24 hours; whereas my post from a few days ago only has a grand total of 18. This is normal, though. Those 18 people are my readers; the other 70 were just curious (or bored).

Today I have an assignment for you. (For those who actually read my posts, that is.) Click on your friend list and find someone you haven't interacted with in a while. No need to message them for this experiment, all you have to do is click on their profile, then scroll through their feed and "like" a few things. Facebook's algorithm will detect this, and begin putting them in your feed every day. This person who was "out of sight/out of mind" has returned, and you will discover they are still alive and well (or maybe not well) and you can take part in their life again.

By the way, that person doesn't have to be me. In fact, if all of you chose me, there's no way I could return the favor. But if we all chose one person to reconnect with--what might we learn about all we have missed, or forgotten?

Until tomorrow--

Oh! Also. I'm considering continuing this blog on an ongoing basis, just to talk about other things in life that interest me, and perhaps might interest others as well. Relatable things. I'm going for my degree in Psychology, and hoping to work with children who have undergone emotional trauma, and a lot of what I am learning is quite interesting, to me anyway. I also teach social psychology. I'm an artist, and a book nerd.

Would anybody be interested in reading my ramblings? If so, drop me a comment below, or on Facebook. I'd like to know if I am just talking to myself, which is pretty normal for me some days. ;)