I’ll share a short story of how the algorithm sucks.
A friend’s mom was dying of cancer. I knew it would be within a few days or week. He was texting me a lot - but in random bursts - trying to distract himself from the inevitable. I scrolled through IG, thought I saw it all, and having not heard from him in a while, I texted him something somewhat goofy.
He texted me back, “My mom just died”. I had no idea. Sure enough, scroll another 5 minutes and buried at the end of my feed is his post from less than 2 hours ago.
Instagram made me look like a dick because they’d rather show me 26 hour old content, than 2 hour content.
He had a few more urgent things to handle. I’m sure I would’ve gotten a call or text hours or a day or so later. But the algorithm decided that it didn’t want to show me sad news and would rather send me engagement bait.
That’s the dumbest possible response, but I see you’re just a troll.
And FYI this was right as they swapped out the original the chrono feed. I was vaguely aware it was happening, I don’t know if I knew it had rolled out to me yet. I had only had a sneaking suspicion he’d post it there. And as I mentioned, I knew she had days to maybe a week. It would’ve been one of the top posts in a chrono feed.
Meta, decided, for their own gain, to change how their app worked, with essentially no warning, no choice and no transparency - wasn’t like there was a big notification saying Your Feed Changed. The only thing different visually was the order of the timestamps.
What do you actually think would happen here? That a friend would text me within, idk, 1 to 4 hours of his mom dying? I think he’s got bigger problems - calling a funeral home, or just dealing with the grief.
Was he supposed to text me before the body was cold?
Or was I supposed to text him, either hourly or before I say anything else, “Hey, if your mom dead yet?”.
I didn’t go to Instagram LOOKING for this information. But it was there. As this was when the algorithm was new, I had a decade of experience with IG to expect that if there was anything recent, a quick scroll would surface it, but I was also doing the same thing I’d do a couple times a day.
But IG manipulated my feed, ruined the experience and caused an awkward moment.
What do you actually think would happen here? That a friend would text me within, idk, 1 to 4 hours of his mom dying? I think he’s got bigger problems - calling a funeral home, or just dealing with the grief.
No, I expected you to text him with “hey mate, haven’t heard from you in a bit, hope everything is as good as can be”
And given what he is going through, don’t send him “goofy” texts…
You’re still blaming a website for your lack of social intelligence. And insulting me for pointing it out to you.
I’ll share a short story of how the algorithm sucks. A friend’s mom was dying of cancer. I knew it would be within a few days or week. He was texting me a lot - but in random bursts - trying to distract himself from the inevitable. I scrolled through IG, thought I saw it all, and having not heard from him in a while, I texted him something somewhat goofy.
He texted me back, “My mom just died”. I had no idea. Sure enough, scroll another 5 minutes and buried at the end of my feed is his post from less than 2 hours ago.
Instagram made me look like a dick because they’d rather show me 26 hour old content, than 2 hour content.
He should have called you with the phone
He had a few more urgent things to handle. I’m sure I would’ve gotten a call or text hours or a day or so later. But the algorithm decided that it didn’t want to show me sad news and would rather send me engagement bait.
You used your feed for info, rather than looking at his profile or asking him politely. That’s not on Meta - that’s on you.
That’s the dumbest possible response, but I see you’re just a troll.
And FYI this was right as they swapped out the original the chrono feed. I was vaguely aware it was happening, I don’t know if I knew it had rolled out to me yet. I had only had a sneaking suspicion he’d post it there. And as I mentioned, I knew she had days to maybe a week. It would’ve been one of the top posts in a chrono feed.
Meta, decided, for their own gain, to change how their app worked, with essentially no warning, no choice and no transparency - wasn’t like there was a big notification saying Your Feed Changed. The only thing different visually was the order of the timestamps.
For anyone else, I’ll leave another example: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/12/24/inadvertent-algorithmic-cruelty/
You chose an online social network over real human connection…
Are you missing a chromosome?
What do you actually think would happen here? That a friend would text me within, idk, 1 to 4 hours of his mom dying? I think he’s got bigger problems - calling a funeral home, or just dealing with the grief.
Was he supposed to text me before the body was cold?
Or was I supposed to text him, either hourly or before I say anything else, “Hey, if your mom dead yet?”.
I didn’t go to Instagram LOOKING for this information. But it was there. As this was when the algorithm was new, I had a decade of experience with IG to expect that if there was anything recent, a quick scroll would surface it, but I was also doing the same thing I’d do a couple times a day.
But IG manipulated my feed, ruined the experience and caused an awkward moment.
No, I expected you to text him with “hey mate, haven’t heard from you in a bit, hope everything is as good as can be”
And given what he is going through, don’t send him “goofy” texts…
You’re still blaming a website for your lack of social intelligence. And insulting me for pointing it out to you.
Are you a bot? Asking for a friend.