Lesson 11 · 5 min · 7 things to do
The feed decides
Nobody at a newspaper chose what you saw first this morning. A ranking did, and it was built to keep you scrolling.
- Seconds readers like you spent on the housing piece20 secondsSeconds readers like you spent on the celebrity post90 seconds
Illustrative. A feed can show you one of two stories first: a careful piece on housing policy, or an angry post about a celebrity. What decides?
- Not quite.Importance is not a signal a feed can read. It reads seconds and taps, and the celebrity post has more of both.
- Not quite.Order of publication was the old front page's rule. A ranking has no clock; it has a prediction of what you will pause on.
- Yes.The feed has one instrument: your behaviour, and the behaviour of people who behave like you. It ranks by that, because that is all it can see.
In a study of over half a million posts, each extra moral or emotional word — 'shameful', 'disgusting', 'evil' — raised the chance of a share by about how much?
Commit to one. Nothing is scored — this is here so you have a number in your head before you see the real one.
No such words100One120Two144Three173Relative chance of being shared. About 20%.For each such word, and they stack. A post built from them travels; a post that merely says what happened does not. The feed did not choose anger; it measured that anger moves, and it serves what moves.Illustrative. Set how emotional a post's wording is, and how many of your friends have already shared it.
How high the feed ranks it30How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Calm · 0Calm wording, 0 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 30 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it40How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Calm · 2Calm wording, 2 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 40 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it50How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Calm · 10Calm wording, 10 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 50 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it55How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Sharp · 0Sharp wording, 0 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 55 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it65How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Sharp · 2Sharp wording, 2 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 65 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it75How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Sharp · 10Sharp wording, 10 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 75 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it80How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Furious · 0Furious wording, 0 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 80 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it90How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Furious · 2Furious wording, 2 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 90 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
How high the feed ranks it100How much it actually matters50Illustrative. Furious · 10Furious wording, 10 friends already shared it: the feed ranks it 100 out of 100. How much it matters: unchanged.
What moved the rank?
- Yes.The second bar never moved in any frame. The first climbed with anger and with company, which are the two things a feed can count.
- Not quite.Slide anything: the importance bar is nailed at 50. It is not an input, because a feed has no way to measure it.
- Not quite.Friends add ten or twenty. Wording alone runs from thirty to eighty. Both move it; neither is about the story.
Move both controls to see how they work against each other.
What can a feed measure about a story, and what can it not?
How long you paused on it
Whether it was true
Whether you shared it
Whether it changed your mind
Whether you came back the next day
Whether you needed to know it
Yes.The first column is behaviour, and behaviour is all a machine sees. The second column is what news is for, and none of it leaves a trace the machine can read.Illustrative. A feed tuned to keep you on it, running for longer and longer. Change how long it has been learning you.
Share of your feed that is outrage20%Share that is what changed today40%1 dayDay 1: about 20% of your feed is outrage and about 40% is what actually changed today.
Share of your feed that is outrage35%Share that is what changed today30%30 daysDay 30: about 35% of your feed is outrage and about 30% is what actually changed today.
Share of your feed that is outrage50%Share that is what changed today20%90 daysDay 90: about 50% of your feed is outrage and about 20% is what actually changed today.
Share of your feed that is outrage65%Share that is what changed today12%365 daysDay 365: about 65% of your feed is outrage and about 12% is what actually changed today.
What does a feed tuned for time drift towards?
- Not quite.The day is the falling bar. Balance is not a thing it measures, so it is not a thing it can aim at.
- Yes.The two bars cross and keep going. Nobody set out to build an outrage feed; a feed that learns what you pause on becomes one by itself.
- Not quite.It never asked. It watched. What you say and what you pause on are different, and it can only see one.
Move the control to see what changes.
The loop a feed learns you by. Tap the one link where you have a say.
Tap the part of the figure that answers it.
You pause on a postThe feed notes itIt shows you more like itYou pause moreYour feed narrowsYou pause on a post
Yes.The only link that is you. Everything after it is the machine reacting to it, and the whole loop is built from the first two seconds.The feed notes it
Not quite.The machine, and nothing you can turn off. It notes everything.It shows you more like it
Not quite.The machine again. This is the step people blame, and it is only doing what the first step told it.You pause more
Not quite.You, but by now on a feed already shaped by the first pause. The say you had was earlier.Your feed narrows
Not quite.The result. Nobody chose it; it is what the first four links add up to.A feed cannot measure truth or importance. It measures what you paused on, and gives you more of it.
- Stories two readers of one paper had in common100%Stories two feeds had in common0%
Illustrative. Two people in the same town open the same app on the same morning and see no story in common. What has replaced the front page?
- Not quite.Not the same stories. Each feed pulled from millions and kept what its reader pauses on, and the two readers pause on different things.
- Not quite.Nothing was removed. Everything was ranked, separately for each of them, and the rankings never met.
- Yes.A front page was one list, and everyone who bought it disagreed about the same twelve things. A feed is a list per reader, and the town no longer has a day in common.
Lesson complete
A feed measures what you paused on, never whether it was true or mattered.
Next: Reading the silence →