Understanding Attention

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Social media and news algorithms optimize for engagement and revenue, not human care or shared well-being.

Personalized feeds can fracture shared reality, weakening common norms and trust.

Belonging depends on shared attention over time, not private, individualized streams.

Platform tweaks may help, but belonging cannot be outsourced to better code.

In February, Meta—the parent company of Facebook and Instagram—unveiled “Dear Algo,” an AI-based feature that lets users “talk” to the algorithm that decides what appears in our personalized online worlds.

It’s the latest of several high-profile efforts to “humanize” the algorithms that govern so much of our lives these days. With features like these, tech giants are responding to a widespread feeling: that we’ve lost our sense of agency online. Market forces and opaque formulas decide what we notice, what we miss, and what we carry around in our thoughts and feelings throughout our days. These algorithms determine our news and information diets, our shopping and music preferences, dating matches, and even the emotional tone and tenor of our political discourse.

It’s good news that tech companies are beginning to recognize that there’s a problem. Still, is it really possible to “humanize” an algorithm?

The issue isn’t just what social media platforms are (or aren't) showing us. The deeper question is what these systems do to our attention—and therefore to our lives.

The Real Purpose Algorithms Serve

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