When the Feed Thinks for You

Algorithms colonize the mind, one suggestion at a time

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You don’t scroll the feed. The feed scrolls you.

We like to pretend we’re in charge. That we open our favorite app out of free will and not sheer reflex. That we’re just “checking something real quick”—a modern fairy tale that always ends an hour later, eyes glazed, soul slightly hollowed, and somehow reading about a celebrity’s salad order from 2016.

But here’s the thing: the feed isn’t a neutral space. It’s not a library. It’s not even a newsstand. It’s a machine—engineered to grab your attention, keep it, and convert it into profit. And it’s very, very good at its job.

“It doesn’t need to know who you are. It just needs to know what you’ll click.”

The algorithm doesn’t care about your beliefs, your values, or your inner peace. It cares about patterns. You paused on a conspiracy video once? Congratulations, you’re now a “person who enjoys fringe theories.” Lingered too long on a stranger’s wedding reel? Here’s twenty more just like it, followed by a bouquet ad, then a panic-inducing article on declining marriage rates.

And once it knows how to keep you around, it begins to close the loop. Slowly, methodically, it builds you a box made entirely of your past behavior. At first, it feels comforting—familiar, even. But that comfort is a trap. You’re not being shown what’s true or even what’s good—you’re being shown what’s likely to keep you scrolling.

“The result? A curated version of reality that flatters your assumptions, confirms your suspicions, and keeps the dopamine coming.”

It’s not quite brainwashing. It’s more like brain brining—slow, subtle, and deeply effective.

Over time, your feed starts to think for you. You stop wondering what’s happening in the world and start waiting for the feed to tell you. It frames what matters. It sets the emotional tone. It decides what’s worth your attention before your own thoughts even have a chance to show up to the meeting.

“Mental autonomy used to be a given. Now it’s a manual setting—and most people forgot where the switch is.”

And let’s be honest—most of us don’t notice. Why would we? The feed feels personal. Intimate. Like it knows us. Like it gets us. (Spoiler: it doesn’t. It just knows what worked on us yesterday.)

But there’s a cost to letting the algorithm do the thinking. You start losing the ability to sit with uncertainty. To chase your own curiosity. To get bored enough that real ideas have space to surface. Your attention span shrinks to TikTok length. Your inner voice starts sounding suspiciously like a headline. And before long, you’re full of opinions you didn’t quite form, reacting to things you didn’t ask to see.

The fix isn’t to throw your phone in the sea and become a goat herder. (Though, tempting.) It’s to reintroduce friction. The algorithm wants ease. Friction breaks the cycle. Ask why something was shown to you. Seek out things it wouldn’t recommend. Stay bored long enough to remember what your own thoughts sound like.

And more than anything: don’t forget that you have a mind worth protecting.

“You are not your feed. You are not your clicks. You are not the version of you that performs well in the metrics.”

You are the person behind the screen, still capable of critical thought, curiosity, and clarity—if you choose to use it.

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Coming Next: How to Break the Algorithm Spell and Escape Social Media’s Grip — once you know you’re under the spell, the real question is: how do you break it?