Social media isn't monolithically good or bad. It's a mess, like any new technology. Language change has always been beyond our control and shaped by invisible factors. Your preferences don't really matter, because linguistic evolution reflects cultural moments more than the feelings of individual people. Since our cultural moment is defined by

The nature of user-generated content means that anyone can have a platform, removing agency from the prescriptive powers that be and kick-starting an entirely new decolonization of language.

Ironically, true individuality may come out of a lack of labels and stories, because there's greater freedom of expression with a blank slate. If everybody's the "main character," then nobody is.

Our blind trust in algorithms helps us believe in the categories assigned to us. Even though personalized recommendations are probabilistic —trying to predict what we like—we often treat them as deterministic , as if they already know what we like. Through that attitude, we become "calcified in our digital identities," each of which can be uniquely

"Categories" are just stories we tell ourselves about how we're similar to or different from each other, and these stories become even simpler through self-Flanderization. It feels so much easier to frame age differences as generational, so we reduce our identities to fit those labels. It's easier to talk about your fashion preferences when you're

The human brain really likes simplicity, and algorithms appeal to the brain's subconscious desires, so naturally the algorithm will push stories and categories that feel satisfyingly simple to us. Readily understandable labels and explanations are not only easier to consume; they feel better to consume.

… we evolved pattern recognition and episodic memory as survival mechanisms, since they're necessary for crucial behaviors like learning and socializing. Once we were able to tie causes to events, we were better suited for reacting to stimuli in our environment.

We also turned into meaning-making machines, unable to shake ourselves from thinking in

Meanings create boxes, and we put ourselves into those boxes every time we believe stories about who we are.

In 2023, researchers at the Kellogg School of Management found that the way algorithms filter content has fundamentally changed how we engage in social learning. We've always acquired new behaviors by mimicking the actions of others, but algorithms bring us content representing the most extreme behaviors of others. Again, this leads to us thinking