I just finished watching the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. The show is well worth a look. I consider myself pretty savvy about technology, but regardless, I learned quite a bit.

Long ago, I accepted my loss of privacy with Facebook and Google. I realized each company made money by parlaying knowledge of my interests into advertising revenue. Letting them advertise a product of interest, like a new mattress, seemed like a win-win when I was looking. I had no idea how insidious the invasion of my privacy was nor what a Faustian Bargain I had accepted.

It turns out social media can change behavior; not just consumer behavior, but in other nefarious ways. We see the negative impact of the behavior change throughout the world, from the genocide in Myanmar to the political unrest in the U.S. Social Media companies did not set out to cause civil unrest or genocide. The motivation behind these changes is much more American, the almighty dollar. To make money, social media companies must keep their customers engaged with their platform. The longer someone is on their platform, the more opportunity they have to sell the user's attention to advertisers.

To do this, social media companies use proprietary adaptive algorithms that fine-tune themselves to our interests. Every "like" a user clicks on, every email a user reads, every piece of media a user consumes helps refine the algorithm to make recommendations more and more attractive. Although most of us consider our interests balanced, we naturally gravitate toward certain information. Central to this is a concept called confirmation bias-the human tendency to see new information through the lens of pre-existing beliefs. Social media algorithms amplify these biases. Over time, the algorithms turn slight preferences into polarized opinions. Although developed to "monetize" their platforms, there are significant unintended consequences of the algorithms. Not the least of which is social unrest and political upheaval. Social media is at least partially culpable for breaking up families and friendships and plays a significant role in how none of us seem to be able to agree with one another. There can't be law when we can't agree on facts.

The best way to separate ourselves from the influence is to take a break from social media. Some of my closest and most savvy friends have done just that. For the rest of us, with less will-power, and the inability to completely sever ties to Zuckerberg and his ilk, I found a great article in Wired called, How to Break Out of Your Social Media Echo Chamber. It makes the following recommendations to confuse the algorithms and make your life saner again.

These recommendations include:

• seek information that actively contradicts pre-conceived opinions.
• "Like" everything you read (to confuse the algorithms).
• read from reputable media on all sides of every issue.
• beware of people you follow online that don't follow others, especially if they tend to engage only with like-minded people.
• Focus on recency of information rather than personalization (breaking free of algorithms).
• listen with an open mind, to a wide range of voices, even if they make you uncomfortable.

Here are some other interesting reads:

• Why Can't We Agree on What's True Any More?
• Why We Believe Alternative Facts