Explain
Social media algorithms in terms of a nosy neighbour with binoculars
Social media algorithms are essentially just a nosy neighbour with binoculars who insists on live-tweeting your life to people you haven't spoken to since your Year 9 geography trip.
The mechanism is simple: the algorithm, let us call her Mrs Higgins from number 42, tracks your every move to decide what you actually care about. If you spend three seconds hovering over a video of a golden retriever wearing a tiny raincoat, she immediately assumes your entire personality is now 'dog fashion enthusiast'. She then spends the next three days barricading your path with videos of pugs in parkas and Labradors in lederhosen, convinced she is doing you a massive favour by curating your entire reality based on one moment of mid-commute weakness.
The issue arises when you accidentally click on a conspiracy theory about the moon being a hollowed-out disc. Mrs Higgins doesn't care that you were just curious; she takes that data, sprints across the road, and starts throwing leaflets through your letterbox about how the tides are actually controlled by the local council. Before you know it, your feed is just an endless parade of men in sheds explaining why the earth is flat, while Mrs Higgins peers through the curtains, waiting to see if you will engage with the next instalment of unhinged nonsense.
Eventually, the algorithm knows you better than your own mother, predicting that you will spend your Sunday afternoon oscillating between doom-scrolling about the economy and watching a man build a swimming pool in a jungle using only a rusted spoon. She is not your friend, she is not your curator, and she certainly doesn't need to know why you searched for that ex-colleague on LinkedIn at 2am.
Where the analogy breaks downA nosy neighbour can eventually be told to go away, whereas the algorithm thrives on the fact that you keep buying the curtains she likes to peek through.