tl; dr: I find some web 2.0 content so draining it undermines the experience of entire platforms
I think we can all relate to those moments in life when you feel overwhelmed — beset on all sides by obligations or problems. In such times I try to turn to humor, distractions, and escape.
For over a year now I’ve known that certain social-media platforms I was trying to “escape” to were actually promoting stress-inducing content that was having an entirely inverse effect. “This is my problem,” I told myself, “I’m the one choosing to open these sites.”
I never even touched Twitter. Then some news sites. Then linkedIn, nextdoor. The last stragglers are reddit, youtube, and news.ycombinator.
Reddit is the simplest illustration of this phenomenon. I have an exhausting meeting coming up, I need a 10 minute breather to clear my head, I turn on reddit for cat pictures and boom suddenly I’m witnessing a cop battering a protestor. My body has an immediate visceral response. So caught up am I in righteous indignation, that I have completely forgotten in the moment about how my goal was to relax. “I need to care about this!” screams my body.
I pruned my reddit feed, and now I’m down to “r/madeMeSmile” and “r/HighQualityGifs.” Unfortunately, if I ever log out of the site I get this default feed, which is about 25% outrage-bait (e.g. a video of a group of people confronting a car driving on the sidewalk) (e.g. “Controversial law allows police to seize and sell cars of non-lawbreakers, keeping the proceeds”).
The math here is working against me. One cute picture of a cat does not negate one horrifying video of somebody slipping on the stairs and hurting themselves. Or in the case of HN, one intense rant is not negated by one thoughtful comment.
Youtube though is the platform I’d miss the most. I seem to have no control over my youtube feed, but ideally it’d be this “Nothing political, nothing with the words ‘destroyed’/’owned’/’idiot’. Nothing about millennials/boomers. Nothing where the thumbnail is a face-palm. Nothing with the phrase ‘You wont believe’”.
I go to youtube for things like lockpicking videos, gameboy repair, primitive survival. Unfortunately, somehow I seem to get recommended a ton of Joe Rogan clips, unwanted fringe political videos, and a mix of other neutral unwanted content. And the comments are the worst.
Unfortunately what youtube’s algorithm doesn’t understand is linking one single inflammatory bad video recommendation (even if I don’t click it) may make my entire youtube experience negative. Most topics have an emotional impact on people, and web 2.0 needs to start regulating for this, or I suspect others will eventually find themselves booting platforms wholesale too.
If this were a youtube video, this is the point where I’d be telling you that this is some crisis to freak out about. But honestly it’s not really an urgent problem. I think there’s an opportunity for us as individuals to become increasingly aware of when we’re being baited/provoked and avoid platforms. I also think there’s an opportunity for new platforms or algorithms to form that prioritize giving the user the emotional experience that they are seeking.