The Algorithm Decides. Until You Don’t Let It.
Do you ever ask yourself the question why you see what you see?
Didn’t we all sign up on a social media platform to be informed about how our friends are doing, to stay connected even if they live far away, or to share some insights about our work because we think they might be useful to our readers?
But why, on any given morning, a platform built by some of the most sophisticated engineers in human history decides to show us cat videos instead of the article that might have changed how we think about our work, our investments, or our city?
And why do we stay hooked on those empty posts and reels?
The answer is not complicated. It is just uncomfortable. By now, everyone should know how this works. And yet - we scroll. And scroll. And scroll.
We are more profitable when we are passive.
The Architecture of Distraction
Social media platforms are not neutral conduits of information or connection. They are attention economies - businesses whose revenue depends entirely on how long we remain on their pages. And they have spent billions of dollars - and decades of behavioural research - understanding exactly what keeps us there.
The result is an algorithm that is not designed to inform us. It is designed to retain us.
Cat videos, outrage, nostalgia, controversy - these formats trigger dopamine responses that text-heavy analysis simply cannot match. The algorithm knows this. It has tested it on hundreds of millions of users. And increasingly, the content it serves us is not even created by humans - AI-generated images, synthetic videos, fabricated “relatable” moments - all optimised for engagement and distraction.
We stay longer. We see more advertisements. They earn more money.
Our attention is the product. Our time is the cost.
What stays hidden - the long-form piece, the nuanced argument, the source that would actually make us think - is not hidden by accident. It is hidden because it is less profitable than a video of a golden retriever learning to skateboard.
So if you are posting useful content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn - over and over again - and wondering why the people you want to reach never seem to see it… now you know. It is not your fault. It’s the algorithms. It might be time to go back to the roots.
The Stoic Response
The Stoics called it the hegemonikon - the commanding faculty. The part of us that chooses where to direct our attention, how to interpret what we perceive, and what we allow to influence our judgement.
Marcus Aurelius wrote that we have power over our minds, not outside events. Epictetus built his entire philosophy on the distinction between what is up to us and what is not.
What is not up to us: the algorithm.
What is entirely up to us: whether we surrender to it. I admit, it is easier said than done. I love cat videos too.
This is not a call for digital asceticism. You can try, of course. I do it regularly and respect some elementary rules like shutting off notifications, leaving the phone in a different room to sleep and a very conscious use of focus or do not disturb time. Changing the email account to fetch or even manual instead of push. It works. I read what I want to read when I am ready to focus on it. And then the sender has my full attention. Because at that time, I am only doing this and nothing else.
So I am not suggesting we delete our accounts, retreat from the world, or pretend that social media does not exist. It does. And it still has the possibility to link us to our friends on Facebook or to share professional insights on LinkedIn. But you never know if what you share is seen by the persons you want to reach. If the algorithm decides, well our content just disappears. Maybe it was too serious. Too critical. Too whatever. Value and control are not the same thing. The algorithm decides what is seen. We only decide what we post.
This is what brings me back to the newsletter. That old-school format - remains, to me, one of the last autonomous acts of information consumption available to us. We subscribe. We choose. We read when we are ready, not when a notification interrupts our thinking. We read on our terms - morning, evening, on a train, with a coffee. We can delay a read without losing it in the thread. And if the content does not serve us, we unsubscribe. No algorithm designed to re-engage us. No feed engineered to pull us back. Simple as that.
It is a small act. And it is ours.
What This Has to Do With Intelligence
In his brilliant - and deliberately provocative - essay The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, the Italian economic historian Carlo Cipolla argued that the truly dangerous people in any society are not the bandits. They are those who act against their own interest while harming others, entirely without awareness. His definition of stupid behaviour is so clear that, once you have read it, you cannot unsee it. And what is worse: you see it more and more.
I think about this when I watch people scroll.
Not because scrolling is stupid. But because the conditions under which we scroll -the manufactured urgency, the engineered reward loops, the invisible curation, the opinions we are made to adopt without a second thought - make it nearly impossible to act in our own cognitive interest. We are not choosing. We are being chosen for.
The question I keep returning to, and that runs through the book I am writing, is this: in an age of unprecedented access to information, are we actually becoming more informed? Or are we becoming more managed? Even more stupid? I have read the research. The answer is not reassuring.
The newsletter does not solve this alone. And I believe we can act against it. That belief is what this book is about.
We decide what enters our minds. When. From whom.
That, in a world designed to take that choice away from us, is not nothing.
This piece is part of an ongoing reflection drawn from my forthcoming book The Fence Climber.
Thank you, Nathalie, for this inspiring post. It’s a fantastic idea to take (back) control of our focus and learn to use it at will, directing our attention to the objects _we_ choose, not the algorithm. I look forward to your book, and I’m certain it will be exceptional.