When we talk about social media today, we often frame it as manipulative, addictive and corrosive to attention. In many ways, this pessimism is justified. Americans now spend an average of seven hours and four minutes per day looking at screens. Beyond the information that is chosen to influence us, much of current online media seems to me to be AI-generated content of recycled, depthless material designed to keep us swiping, to steal hours from our lives and to enrich tech elites.
The internet is not what it used to be, and as a result, people are being pushed away from it altogether. However, before we declare the age of the smartphone to be over, we should consider an alternative view: we can still make the most of what the internet offers without the relationship becoming negative. Social media algorithms are reactive; therefore, the issue may not be with the platform itself but what we feed it.
Neil Postman warned, long before TikTok existed, that when entertainment and information collapse into each other, we risk dissolving our capacity for seriousness. “We become what we behold,” he wrote. This line has never been more literal. Algorithms aren’t moral agents; they’re sorting machines trained on engagement, reflecting our impulses and interests back to us. In a continuous loop of feeding us what keeps us engaged, our understanding of the technology’s potential becomes severely limited.
This is why apps designed to reduce screen time exist alongside apps designed to steal it. Technology is created to serve humans, not control us. The difference between the two outcomes is not the technology. It is the intention of the user. If we reframe the algorithm as a mirror instead of a manipulator, we fundamentally change our relationship with our devices. We stop being passive consumers and become active curators.
Firstly, we can understand one of the algorithm’s strengths and build upon that. One positive aspect of social media is the quality of its search engines and the ability to share ideas and information in a more personal way. Recipes, home-repair walkthroughs and academic explanations are ways these platforms collapse the distance between an idea and the person sharing it. Instead of clicking through fragmented websites, you can watch someone demonstrate the process in real time. Used this way, social apps stop being entertainment machines and start functioning like libraries; they are visual, searchable and surprisingly efficient.
Secondly, we can think of our algorithms as another piece of our home. Like cleaning your room, you should clean the algorithms to make them reflect what you want to see. If you spend five minutes scrolling and categorizing every video you see, you’ll probably notice three layers of content. Firstly, internet slop: AI voiceovers, low-effort trends, clickbait noise. Secondly, pleasant but disposable content: cute animals, satisfying edits — quick dopamine hits. And thirdly, high-value content that is worth seeing.
If you interact only with the top tier, the algorithm adjusts. Slowly, your phone begins showing you only what you’ve trained it to show. And, if every time you impulsively opened an app you were confronted not with slop, but with things that genuinely informed, taught or inspired you, your phone would become a tool again, not a trap.
This doesn’t magically make scrolling productive. You’re still procrastinating, but you’re procrastinating with intention. And in a digital world defined by distraction, intentionality is an underrated discipline.
We might eventually need something larger than individual curation. We may need design regulations or app-store standards that require social media platforms to resemble public libraries rather than slot machines. Technology was supposed to propel human capability; instead, we have allowed it to specialize in cognitive extraction.
I believe that, until those reforms arrive, the power still sits with us. Perhaps the next evolution of the smartphone will not be technological at all, but psychological: a shift from being beholden to the algorithm to holding it accountable.
For a large majority of Americans, especially the younger generations growing up with phones, not knowing how to be intentional with social media is a potentially detrimental yet common occurrence. Is it possible to maintain a safe distance from the apps? Or do we need to cut them off completely and return to flip phones?
