fixing my algo-brain

Kia ora, and welcome to clipboard, an occasional newsletter by me, Reilly Hodson. This issue is a bit of a swerve on usual programming - an attempt to fix my brain after too long wired into the algorithm.

In October last year, one of my favourite podcasts, Search Engine, release an episode called "Is there a sane way to use the internet?" In it, host PJ Vogt asks your dad's favourite US political commentator Ezra Klein the question in the title: how do you use the internet in a way that doesn't make you feel bad all the time?

Like PJ, I was having a crisis with my own relationship to the internet. I was a hopeless addict to Twitter, doomscrolling whenever my hands were free, hooking my brain to an endless stream of jokes, opinions, anger, atrocities, memes, over and over.

Where I had previously seen it as a point of pride to be well informed, hearing about news and memes before they filtered through to "normal" people, by the time I listened to that show my use of the internet was making me feel stuck in place. Were my opinions my own, as I liked to tell myself, or just parroting someone smart from the media to whom I was parasocially obsessed?

Twitter had reshaped my political and current affairs opinions into its own image - I was thinking, and talking, in Tweets, quick one-liners that gestured towards insight but were more like a lolly than a meal, intriguing for a second but without any staying power.

It's not just Twitter and politics. My brain, and probably yours too, has been reshaped by recommendation algorithms on plenty of fronts. I find cafes on Instagram, ideas for outfits on TikTok, movies from a "Picked for you" section on Netflix, music from an autoplay feature at the end of my own playlists.

It's a phenomenon that writer Kyle Chayka calls "Filterworld," in a book of the same name that I am nearly finished as I write this piece. To sum it up reductively, as recommendation algorithms decide the new things we consume, the people creating culture, opening restaurants, even developing policy, fit their output to what will catch fire on the algorithm. More and more of what we consume in the real world has been made to fit in moulds created by software engineers on the other side of the world.

After I listened to that podcast, I deleted Twitter off my phone. A few months ago, I deleted TikTok, too. Now that those spaces on my homepage are empty, I've been trying to rebuild my online life, and rewire my brain, separated from black box algorithms and towards the judgement of real people.

This isn't a "touch grass" post, although getting outside and going for runs has helped. I'm still addicted to the news, to learning things I never knew before, to broadening my world beyond our borders. Increasingly, though, I want to feel like I'm choosing the things I read, listen to and watch, not that they're coming to me from the ether. I've found it's deepened my relationship to the things I consume - turns out 'Brat' is way more fun as a whole album or Boiler Room performance than a succession of 30 second clips on a vertical feed.

So, in the interests of centring real people in my media diet, here's what I'm embracing in my own world.

🌐 News site home pages: The website home page is a dying art - everyone gets their news from Facebook, Google and Twitter, anyway, right? There are still some good homepages, and perusing the homepage of a publication you trust is a great way to engage with what's going on in the world, filtered not through what the algorithm wants to show you, but by an editorial team’s judgement. I keep a folder of website homepages in my browser that I open every morning to catch up, before getting into the day.
My diet: The Verge, The Spinoff, The New York Times, The Guardian, BusinessDesk, RNZ, Ensemble

📰 Email newsletters: In the same vein, I embrace the email newsletter, a medium that has really come into its own as a way to disconnect from other feeds. I subscribe to a bunch, some from individuals I trust, some from publications I like to read, and love to read them on the bus into work. I'm not going to buy the physical paper every morning, but a good selection of newsletters can be like your own personal newspaper.
My diet: The Bulletin, The Weekend, Magasin, Blackbird Spyplane, The Monocle Minute, Deez Links, Newspread, Today in Tabs

🎶 Listening to an album from start to finish: The playlist has become the dominant format for collecting music in 2024, but I've never found that the suggested playlists from Spotify or Apple Music have been any good at figuring out why I like to listen to the music I do. Call me old fashioned, but my favourite way to listen to music is to pick an album and listen front to back. Then, I'll make my own personal playlists based on songs I like in those albums. Bring back the iPod model of music listening, imo!
Recent listens: Blonde by Frank Ocean, Charm by Clairo, brat by Charli XCX, Only God Was Above Us by Vampire Weekend, Slow Mover by Leonard Powell

📻 The radio: Another forgotten medium. While mainstream music radio tries to figure out its role in the TikTok world, I've been listening to 95bFM a lot recently. I was a bFM volunteer while I studied, and was always blown away by its small team's dedication to creating space for people to share their passions through music. I'm not a jazz fan, but the jazz show is a perfect way to while away a Sunday afternoon, and I love hosts like Hunter Keane and Sam Smith's curation of new music. Plus: Karyn Hay is hosting a weekly show! I want to live in the creative, caring, thoughtful, thorny Auckland that 95bFM creates.

🎧 Podcasts: I've been a podcast tragic since before 'Serial', and the wonderful thing about the podcast market is how decentralised it is. Despite Spotify's best efforts, it's still a medium that anyone can upload to, and listen to through your favoured app. The podcast format lends itself to long term engagement with the real people behind the microphone. I probably start sentences with "I just listened to a great podcast about..." way too often, but I won't apologise for that.
My diet: Articles of Interest, Ate Ate Ate, Fashion People, Gone by Lunchtime, Throwing Fits, The Vergecast, The Worst Idea of All Time

📚 Print media: The OG! Print is the pinnacle of gatekept, human-curated media. Reading a magazine, or ~gasp~ a whole book, lends itself to deep engagement, distraction avoidance, and real relaxation. Nothing hits like picking up something in print, leaving your phone in the other room and spending a few hours reading.
My recent diet: Metro, Monocle, Apartamento, Status and Culture by W David Marx, Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

My brain still isn't fixed, but I think I have a healthier relationship with the ~media ecosystem~ now that I'm exercising more choice over the the things I consume. I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please send me an email on how you protect your brain when engaging with the internet!

That’s all for this issue of clipboard, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to your friend who always talks about starting a book club. I’ll be back at the end of the month with August’s clips. If you’d like to get in touch, reply to this email or send me a message on Instagram. See you next time!