When our attention is held for hours each day by black-box algorithms that feed us not what we want so much as what we find it hard to look away from, we are being, in a sense, deformed.

Algorithmic media companies exploit the difference between our attentional instincts and aspirations. In so doing, they make it harder for us to become who we might wish to be.

These companies do not offer us control over what we see because they do not want us to have it. They do not want to be bound by who we seek to be tomorrow.