Trapped in the Feed: Your Personalized Reality

A friend posted earlier this week:

“This is ridiculous. Aren’t y’all exhausted?”

I didn’t realize that was the word I’d been searching for until I read it.

EXHAUSTED

That’s how it feels every time I open Facebook or Instagram lately.

There’s been controversy over the Super Bowl halftime show. I’m not here to debate that. What struck me was a child who asked me, completely serious, “Is calling someone dumb racist?”

That’s the part that’s exhausting.

EVERYTHING is a controversy now. If I like blue and you like yellow, then clearly one of us must be morally corrupt and the entire internet needs to know about it.

But here’s what I think a lot of people are still missing:

OUTRAGE SELLS!

Big companies. Influencers. Media outlets. They have figured it out. Outrage gets clicks. Shock factor gets shares. Emotion gets likes. The truth is boring, but dress it up with a little drama and you’ve got a viral video.

And when you’re aware this is happening in real time, it is mentally draining.

You start noticing the formula:

“You know what I hate…”Click.…followed by an ad for some new miraculous make-up that makes all of your wrinkles disappear.

A heartfelt story about visiting Grandpa in a nursing home…Five minutes later you realize it’s a pitch for a memory book.

Nothing is face value. Everything has an angle. Either to sell you something you don’t need or to sway your opinion about something you weren’t even thinking about five minutes ago.

It’s like having a vacuum salesman in your pocket 24/7.

And don’t get me started on algorithms.

I recently learned about tracking pixels. That’s why if you accidentally watch what you think is a funny reel that turns out to be an ad for hormone therapy, suddenly hormone therapy follows you everywhere. Facebook. Email. Grocery apps. Every corner of the internet.

It’s not random. It’s designed to wear down your willpower so by the fifteenth time you see it, you think, “Maybe I do need this.”

Newsflash: You probably don’t.

But here’s the bigger concern.

The algorithm doesn’t just sell products. It sells realities.

If you watch one conservative video, you’ll be flooded with content screaming that blue haired liberals are after your kids and destroying the country. Watch one liberal video, and suddenly it’s nonstop content about extremist conservatives coming out of the woods with their guns ruining everything.

Because you’re only seeing one side, it becomes easy to believe you’re seeing the truth.

But you’re not.

You’re seeing edited clips designed to create outrage, fear, and anger. Not information. Not context. Pure emotion.

Neither side is showing the full video. Neither side is sharing the full story.

And here we are, neighbors having sign wars in their yards. Families not speaking because, “How can you possibly believe that?”

We don’t live in America anymore.

We live in an algorithm, carefully curated to convince and sell.

And if you don’t intentionally step outside of it and look at both sides, you are being played by the highest bidder and the best influencer.

I have a neighbor who routinely puts signs in her yard about how embarrassing it is to be American. She lives in a nice safe neighborhood, in a brand new home built to her specifications last year, and drives a new BMW. I often wonder if she got off of social media and stepped out on her manicured lawn if she would still be embarrassed. Would she even know that there was injustice in the world? We've been convinced that the world is burning down around us, but by who and why?

This isn’t a political statement. I’m not debating issues. I'm not saying that there are no issues.

I am, however, pointing out how exhausting it is that every single aspect of life has been turned into a controversy because controversy is profitable.

I once heard this and it stuck with me:

“If something is FREE, then YOU are the product.”

So let me ask you this:

When is the last time you paid for a Facebook subscription?