The antidote to an angry algorithm

plus, why it's crucial we stay connected in times of conflict.

Yesterday morning, while I was scrolling Instagram reels - typically how I spend the first ten or fifteen minutes after I wake up, before I feel up to putting my feet on the floor - I noticed that something seemed…off.

The IG algorithm typically feeds me cozy stuff: chickens, kittens, and dreamy scenes of steaming teakettles and cobblestone streets, just the way I like it. But yesterday, there was a persistent new element sprinkled in: over and over, I was served up videos of raw confrontation caught on film. Irate customers badgering baristas and cashiers, wild animals charging careless tourists, students yelling at teachers and vice versa, and a lot of disgruntled folk destroying property, throwing punches or hurling curses.

Some of these videos were clearly positioned as rhetoric to create outrage, others were supposed to be funny (I think)…still others, obviously staged to elicit attention and shares. They were all targeting slightly different kinds of audiences and there was no consistent message or agenda throughout: the only shared language in the videos seemed to be anger and conflict without target or purpose.

And for those ten or fifteen minutes, I thoughtlessly immersed myself in it. Even though I’d only hover on a video for a second while determining whether I wanted to watch it or not, I’d absorb its mood before I scrolled past. When I looked up from my screen, ready to swing my feet to the floor, I realized that my heart was pounding, my jaw was clenched, and my shoulders starting to creep up toward my ears.

It’s not surprising that there would be a lot of angry and aggrieved political content on the Internet right now. I’m consuming that content - blog posts and newspaper articles, mostly, but also Facebook threads and even, cautiously, some comments sections - with intention. Sometimes righteous anger is justified, and I want to bear witness to the fear and pain many of my friends are experiencing as well as to become better informed about global history and geopolitics.

But Instagram is usually where I go to decompress, and over time I’ve trained the algorithm to feed me ducks and books and baked goods: not strife, particularly not of the random aggression-as-entertainment variety.

The algorithm¹ seems to be broken right now, friends. Are you seeing it too?

I’m not sure if there’s a connection between the a high level of global conflict and violence right now and the way I’ve been experiencing the internet over the past few days, but it doesn’t feel like a stretch to imagine there is. Perhaps times of high conflict lead to more angry, aggressive content being created and shared. Or maybe the algorithm is trying to read the room and give us more of what gets us whipped up.

Either way, I’m trying to remind myself that while it’s important to have my eyes and heart open to the pain and trauma that’s happening to humans all over the world, that does not mean it’s healthy or helpful to steep myself in random, impersonal conflict.

The internet may be soaking in anger and aggression at this moment in time, but I can choose other ways to entertain myself, decompress, and connect.

If you’re also feeling caught up in negativity and anger, here are a few ways you can redirect - and why the first step may be to reconnect.

Check in with your body.

It’s easy to completely lose track of what’s happening in my nervous system while I’m mindlessly scrolling. But our bodies are reacting to the content we’re consuming, even if we don’t notice it. I’ve been making a practice of doing a three-point check on my body multiple times throughout the day, and more frequently if I’m scrolling the Internet. If my breath is fast or choppy, my heart is pounding, or my shoulders are beginning to shrug upward, it’s a dead giveaway that it’s time to take a break and reconnect with something real.

Retrain the algorithm.

Yesterday, after noticing what kind of content Instagram was serving me - and the effect it was having on my psyche - I abruptly put my phone down and left it alone for several hours. When I returned to it, I went right into strict school-marm mode and began ruthlessly telling Instagram what I did, and especially didn’t, want to see. In particular, I gave outrage-mongering content no quarter. If something was obviously created to spark anger or judgment with no productive purpose, I clicked the little “I don’t want to see this” button, then told Instagram ‘this makes me feel uncomfortable.’ (This was the truth, after all. BRING BACK COZY, INSTAGRAM.)

It felt good to axe all that predatory negativity, like some sort of warrior for wellness and wholesomeness, and when I checked this morning, it felt a lot more like my usual Instagram experience. It was good to remember that I don’t have to be a helpless consumer of whatever the Social Media Overlords want to feed me, and that I can choose to engage with difficult feelings on my own terms, according to my own values.

Connect. With yourself, with others, with goodness itself.

There may be another reason the violence and aggression in my feed stood out at as so unusual yesterday: I was just coming off spending an uplifting weekend with twelve members of the REINVENT Community² at our fall retreat. The weekend was marked by calm connectedness: wonderfully open and present conversations, creative inspiration and chances to play, restorative yoga and meditation, even a foraging walk and an herbal medicine-making session that helped us connect with nature.

No wonder why, after all that life-giving beauty and love, manufactured outrage and gratuitous aggression seemed so jarring. It should feel jarring, all the time - and the whiplash I felt jumping from one extreme to the other is a good reminder that staying sensitized to crass violence by seeking its opposite is a human goal worth pursuing.

We have plenty of tools at our disposal to help us manage the content we consume and gauge its impact on our bodies, minds, and souls. But for me, connection is the ultimate antidote - it’s what fills the holes that we might otherwise look to stuff with distraction or addictions or outrage (or outrage as a distracting addiction, as it were.)

Connection can look like listening instead of lecturing, hugging your spouse even when you feel like pulling away, praying when you don’t know what to do next, creating even when it feels frivolous, or simply sitting on a bench and watching the birds. For me, life feels most correct when it regularly includes all of the above.

Our world is a confusing, scary, and yes, violent place right now. We don’t need to gauge in gratuitous aggression to acknowledge that. Staying connected is the most important antidote to all that anger…and in fact, I believe it’s the first line of defense against becoming desensitized, distracted, and a bit less human.

Let’s lean in on this opportunity, friends. I’m ready if you are.

1. It’s not necessarily just social media, either. Yesterday afternoon, I was surprised by an an angry, insulting response to a blog post I wrote for a website in 2020. The post was three years old and not at all controversial - I have no idea how someone found it, nor why it elicited such a strong reaction. It’s been a really long time since I’ve received a nasty comment on a blog post, and it took me by surprise. Coincidence? Maybe, or perhaps whatever is “in the air” on social is affecting other corners of our digital lives, too.

2. I’m currently offering a membership to REINVENT at my lowest-ever rate: 25% off an annual membership. This rate will only be good through November 15, so grab it now!