I’ve been thinking a lot about where my information comes from. We take in information from others constantly, especially those of us who are online.
When you’re looking for information, you may feel that finding the information you want should be easier. You should just be able to get the data that you’re looking for. But instead you might find:
oh, that message was in Chat, not Messages
that post felt like a Tumblr because you read the comments, but it was actually a TikTok
the title of that article or video was changed, uh, “optimized”
the video was actually a remix of somebody else’s
that email was in that inbox, not in the one I actually use
or any number of other mismatches.
One of the most optimistic promises of the early internet did come true: we have communication possible over broad swaths of the entire human population. But the maintenance and curation of those channels, so that we get the right information for us—we didn’t know how hard that would be. Nor how exploitable it could be.
My theory is that we didn’t know how hard communication actually is because there have always been a few people in our communities who do that labor. Sometimes it’s aunties who keep tabs on our far-flung loved ones and amplify their exploits in our community “grapevine.” Sometimes it’s self-proclaimers who send out missives and draw your attention to their own achievements and needs. Sometimes it’s the person at the coffee shop who knows everybody and wants to introduce you to other people you might like.
In tech, this communication work shows up in our teams, too. One of the biggest issues in building software has been coordination and alignment; while I was at Google, there was an old presentation that was shared and reshared about “coordination headwinds.”
(Is that getting easier, now that there are fewer (human) workers on any given team? Or is it getting harder, since fewer humans are coordinating the work of ever more agents, across ever more product surface area? I’d love to hear from you.)
If you spend time in social media, chances are that most of the passive communications you receive are chosen for you by an algorithm/LLM that is working to maximize revenue, engagement, or clout for the company that owns it. And chances are, it gives you regrets, according to this 2025 research paper: “participants were most likely to regret viewing algorithmically recommended content and comments.”
I’ve been realizing that many of my information sources, the communications I receive every day, are not my aunties or even my coffee shop friends. In the best cases, they are media and news sources, content creators or journalists, that I subscribe to—but even they have motivations I know nothing about.
I started my own experiment: a diary study. For a few hours in the day, I set an alarm for every half hour. When the alarm goes off, I stop to ask myself: What am I thinking about? Where did the impetus come from to start thinking about it? Where did I get data from, to have thoughts about it?
It’s humbling, so far. And difficult. But I’m glad I’m examining where my thoughts are coming from—and considering what I might have time and energy to think about, if I wasn’t swaying in these algorithmic winds.
If you’re interested in doing the same experiment, I’m happy to compare notes. I’d love to hear what you find out.
