I transferred my podcast listening a few months ago to Spotify from another platform. My listening habits have changed a little since I left Raleigh but my regular programming has not. Unlike the podcast platform I had used before, Spotify makes recommendations. The basic concept is simple. Certain elements of your listening history are put into a black box algorithm, you are scored on various metrics, and then you are shown content that you are most likely to want to listen to. All of the streaming companies—music, audio, video—do something similar. Social media companies do too. Twitter and Facebook show you provocative content so that you react to it. YouTube’s recommendations push you farther and farther down a rabbit hole. I’m told TikTok goes even further in this regard with its short-form content (something so successful that YouTube has effectively copied it), but that is one of the many platforms I’ve never used myself. These algorithms are built for specific purposes, and those purposes don’t tend to align with how I would like to use these tools.

Before my walk yesterday, I had queued up a new podcast that was presented to me by the recommendation algorithm. I was in hopes that I might discover something new and a different perspective. My hopes were misplaced. I couldn’t get through the episode as the production quality was so poor, but that was secondary. What was primary was the fact that I was left wondering what I had done to get such a thing recommended to me in the first place. Chalk that up as a failed attempt at novelty, but it did get me thinking.

I’m well aware that it’s hubristic to think that any one person can overcome the collective power of all of the money and engineering talent that has been poured into these content recommendation algorithms. One option is to forego all of these platforms entirely, but doing so comes at some cost. I instead continue to hone a framework of guardrails, some of which include not being on certain platforms, disabling autoplay functions, and not having certain apps on my phone. Does anyone have any tricks they use, whether it be to get a better version of content discovery or simply cutting out the dross, on any of these platforms? I’m curious to read how other people navigate our current information/entertainment environment.