Speaker 1: Is our destiny coded in the algorithm. If you feel
Speaker 1: addicted to social media, this video is for you. If
Speaker 1: you feel glued to whatever's on your feed and can't
Speaker 1: stop doom scrolling, this video is for you. And if
Speaker 1: you're worried about how social media is rewiring your brain,
Speaker 1: this video is for you. Don't skip it. The number
Speaker 1: one health and wellness podcast Jay Sety Jay Shetty set
Speaker 1: I wanted to start today saying one thing. The algorithm
Speaker 1: isn't as smart as we think it is. But the
Speaker 1: deeper I went into my research, the more I realize
Speaker 1: something unsettling. It's stronger than me, stronger than you, stronger
Speaker 1: than all of us because it knows our weaknesses. But
Speaker 1: here's what I also found. Even the strongest system that
Speaker 1: has a glitch, the algorithm doesn't just know us. It
Speaker 1: depends on us. And if we learn how it feeds,
Speaker 1: we can decide whether to starve it or steer it.
Speaker 1: When you google the words will I ever, the first
Speaker 1: thing that comes up is will I ever find love?
Speaker 1: The second is will I ever be enough? And the
Speaker 1: third is will I am net worth? We go from
Speaker 1: love to worth to money really quickly. But this search
Speaker 1: for love, worth and belonging is what the algorithm exploits,
Speaker 1: but not in the way you think. Picture this, it's midnight.
Speaker 1: Think of a girl named Amelia lies in bed, phone
Speaker 1: in her hand. She posts a photo, nothing dramatic, just
Speaker 1: hoping someone notices. The likes trickle in her friend's comment.
Speaker 1: She taps on another girl's profile, prettier, thinner, more followers,
Speaker 1: She lingers, she clicks, She scrolls of them, pays attention.
Speaker 1: The next night, her feed feels different, more flawless faces,
Speaker 1: more filters, more diets, more lives that look nothing like hers.
Speaker 1: Curiosity turns into comparison. Comparison turns into obsession, and soon
Speaker 1: every scroll feels like it's whispering the same three words,
Speaker 1: You're not enough. Until one night she doesn't see herself anymore.
Speaker 1: She only sees the mirror the algorithm is holding up
Speaker 1: to her. This isn't just a Merelia story. Fifty six
Speaker 1: percent of girls feel they can't live up to the
Speaker 1: beauty standards they see on social media. Ninety percent of
Speaker 1: girls follow at least one social media account that makes
Speaker 1: them feel less beautiful. But here's the real question. Did
Speaker 1: the algorithm build that mirror or did she was it
Speaker 1: coded in Silicon Valley or coded in our own clicks.
Speaker 1: Let's look at the algorithm first. What do algorithms actually do?
Speaker 1: Number one They watch every pause, every click, every like,
Speaker 1: every share, even how long you hover over a video
Speaker 1: or comment. TikTok tracks watch time down to the second.
Speaker 1: If you rewatch a clip, it's a super strong signal.
Speaker 1: Number two. They predict using your history and the behaviors
Speaker 1: of millions of people like you, Algorithms predict what are
Speaker 1: you most likely to engage with. Next. If people who
Speaker 1: watch fitness videos also tend to watch diet hacks, you'll
Speaker 1: probably get diet hacks. Number three. They amplify. The posts
Speaker 1: that get more engagement, especially emotional engagement, are pushed to
Speaker 1: more people. Number four. They adapt. Every click retrains the system.
Speaker 1: Your feed tomorrow is shaped by what you do today.
Speaker 1: YouTube's recommendation engine is called a reinforcement system. It's literally
Speaker 1: designed to learn from your actions in real time. The
Speaker 1: most accurate model is a cycle. First of all, we
Speaker 1: click what feels good, familiar, or emotionally hot. Two, the
Speaker 1: algorithm learns and serves us more of that to keep
Speaker 1: us there. Number three, we become more entrenched and less
Speaker 1: exposed to alternatives, and number four, outraging divisions spread faster
Speaker 1: because anger is more contagious. In plain words, the algorithm
Speaker 1: isn't a mastermind. It's a machine that asks one question,
Speaker 1: over and over again, what will keep you here the longest?
Speaker 1: It's like a maximum security prison. So how do we
Speaker 1: get trapped? First? The nudge think, Netflix, AutoPlay, TikTok, infinite scroll,
Speaker 1: the design that says, don't think, don't choose, just keep watching.
Speaker 1: That's how you start a Korean baking show you didn't
Speaker 1: even know existed, and three hours later you're crying over
Speaker 1: a documentary on penguins. A study found disabling AutoPlay led
Speaker 1: to a seventeen minute shorter average session. Showing AutoPlay measurably
Speaker 1: extends watch time. It's not a choice disappearing. It's a
Speaker 1: choice so well hidden you don't realize you never made it. Second,
Speaker 1: the loop, Yale researchers found when people post moral outrage online,
Speaker 1: people reward them with likes and retweets. That person now
Speaker 1: posts even more outrage the next time. It's not the algorithm,
Speaker 1: it's us. It's real people. As one researcher put it,
Speaker 1: we don't just consume outrage, we start producing it because
Speaker 1: outrage performs better than honesty. And Third, the push Mozilla's
Speaker 1: YouTube Regrets project from twenty found that volunteers who started
Speaker 1: with neutral searches like fitness or politics reported being steered
Speaker 1: toward extremist, conspiratorial, or misogynistic content. Seventy one percent of
Speaker 1: the videos people regretted watching were never searched for they
Speaker 1: were recommended the ucl Kent study from twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: In a recent algorithmic model study, accounts on TikTok were
Speaker 1: shown four times more misogynistic content on the for you
Speaker 1: page within just five days of casual strolling. What does
Speaker 1: this do to men and women? Women get more insecure
Speaker 1: about their appearance. Men get more exposed to misogynistic content.
Speaker 1: Women experience more anxiety and self doubt. Men become more
Speaker 1: lonely and disconnected. Women compared their lives to others and
Speaker 1: feel their falling behind. Men compared their state to others
Speaker 1: and feel like they're being left behind. Both end up
Speaker 1: in the same place on social media, isolated, exhausted, and
Speaker 1: shaped by the same machine. The algorithm will do anything
Speaker 1: to keep us glued. There is a huge incentive issue
Speaker 1: for the algorithm because in one study where they chose
Speaker 1: not to show toxic posts, users spent approximately nine percent
Speaker 1: less time daily, experience fewer AD impressions, and generated fewer
Speaker 1: AD clicks. The algorithm's goal is not to make us polarized.
Speaker 1: It's not to make us happy. It's to make us
Speaker 1: addicted and glued to our screens. It is showing you
Speaker 1: what people like you are engaging with, assuming you will
Speaker 1: stay as well. We talked about what the algorithm does.
Speaker 1: Let's look at what role we play. Our clicks build
Speaker 1: the cage. False news stories are seventy percent more likely
Speaker 1: to be retweeted than true stories are. It also takes
Speaker 1: true stories about six times as long to reach fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred people as it does for false stories to reach
Speaker 1: the same number of people. Algorithms don't see truth or lies,
Speaker 1: They only see clicks from people like us want to
Speaker 1: make a real difference This giving season, this December on
Speaker 1: Purpose is part of Pods Fight Poverty podcast, teaming up
Speaker 1: to lift three villages in Rwanda out of extreme poverty.
Speaker 1: We're doing it through Give Directly, which sends cash straight
Speaker 1: to families so they can choose what they need most.
Speaker 1: Donate at GiveDirectly dot org forward slash on purpose. First
Speaker 1: time gifts are matched, doubling your impact. Our goal is
Speaker 1: one million dollars by year's end, enough to lift seven
Speaker 1: hundred families out of poverty. Join us at GiveDirectly dot
Speaker 1: org forward slash on purpose. Number two. False news spread
Speaker 1: six times faster than true news because shocking content sparks
Speaker 1: more clicks and shares from us, so the algorithm promotes
Speaker 1: it further. The content must already have emotional potency. An
Speaker 1: algorithm won't manufacture depth or resonance from nothing. It can't
Speaker 1: make it go viral. Number three. For major media outlets,
Speaker 1: each additional negative effect word in a post is associated
Speaker 1: with a five to eight percent increase in shares and
Speaker 1: retweets from US and four Facebook studies showed that even
Speaker 1: when given the opportunity, users click links confirming their bias
Speaker 1: far more often than opposing one. Liberals chose cross cutting
Speaker 1: news twenty one percent of the time, conservatives thirty percent
Speaker 1: of the time. Here's the twist. The algorithm doesn't pick
Speaker 1: sides we do. It just learns our choice and builds
Speaker 1: a fortress around it. The danger is in that we
Speaker 1: have no choice. It's that we don't notice when our
Speaker 1: choices are being shaped for us. So let's do a
Speaker 1: thought experiment. Why don't we create a social media platform
Speaker 1: without these incentives, one that doesn't play these games with us.
Speaker 1: They already tried that, and when I'm about to share
Speaker 1: with you shocked me the most. A new study out
Speaker 1: of the University of Amsterdam tested this by creating a
Speaker 1: stripped down social network, no ads, no recommendation algorithms, no
Speaker 1: invisible hand pushing content. Researchers released five hundred AI chatbots
Speaker 1: onto the platform, each powered by Open Ai, and gave
Speaker 1: them distinct political and social identities. Then they let them
Speaker 1: loose across five separate experiments amounting to ten thousand interactions.
Speaker 1: The bots began to behave exactly like us. They followed
Speaker 1: those who thought like them. They've reposted the loudest, most
Speaker 1: extreme voices. They gravitated into echo chambers, not because an
Speaker 1: algorithm pushed them there, but because that's where they chose
Speaker 1: to go. It also found that users who posted the
Speaker 1: most partisan content tended to get the most followers and reposts.
Speaker 1: Researchers tried interventions dampening virality, hiding follow accounts, even boosting
Speaker 1: opposing views, but nothing cracked the cycle. The most they
Speaker 1: managed was a six percent reduction in partisan engagement. In
Speaker 1: some cases, when they started hiding user bios, the divide
Speaker 1: actually grew sharper, and the most extreme posts gained even
Speaker 1: more traction. The implication is chilling. Maybe it isn't just
Speaker 1: the algorithms that wop us. Maybe social media itself is
Speaker 1: wired against our better nature. Think about it like a
Speaker 1: funhouse mirror. It doesn't simply reflect who we are. It
Speaker 1: stretches our fears. It magnifies our biases and turns our
Speaker 1: flaws into a spectacle. As humans, we can live consciously
Speaker 1: or unconsciously. We can choose our stronger selves or our
Speaker 1: weaker selves. When we choose our weaker self, humans are
Speaker 1: not just curious. We're programmed to measure ourselves against others.
Speaker 1: Comparison is our oldest survival instinct. Envy is the emotional fuel.
Speaker 1: The algorithm didn't invent it, but it does exploit it
Speaker 1: when we're tired, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Humans are not ruled
Speaker 1: by curiosity. We're ruled by comparison, and envy is the
Speaker 1: price of admission. The algorithm didn't create envy, it just
Speaker 1: turned it into an economy. Now why do we do this?
Speaker 1: The first is negativity bias. Evolution tuned us to notice
Speaker 1: threats more than opportunities. Missing a bery was fine, Missing
Speaker 1: a snake was fatal. Number two, outrage is social currency.
Speaker 1: Expressing outrage signals loyalty to your group. It tells others
Speaker 1: I'm one of us, and in polarized contexts, this isn't
Speaker 1: just emotion, its identity signaling. Clicking rage is clicking belonging.
Speaker 1: Number three cognitive efficiency. Negative content is often simpler. This
Speaker 1: is bad. They're wrong, We're threatened. The brain prefers cognitive
Speaker 1: ease over nuance. Complex balanced content demands more effort. Negativity
Speaker 1: feels immedia, digest and actionable. So what do we do
Speaker 1: about this? Doom Scrolling increases cortisol, anxiety, and learned helplessness.
Speaker 1: In that state, people feel like they have no agency,
Speaker 1: which can reinforce the sense of doom. So we have
Speaker 1: an incentive issue for the platforms because they're just trying
Speaker 1: to keep us glued, and we have a lack of
Speaker 1: mental resilience for us. Put those both together, that's what
Speaker 1: we're experiencing. Right now. So what do we do about
Speaker 1: the incentive issue? People often ask me if I think
Speaker 1: AI will ever have a soul, and my response is,
Speaker 1: I don't know if AI will ever have a soul.
Speaker 1: I just hope that people building AI have a soul.
Speaker 1: The people who created these algorithms will lose millions or
Speaker 1: billions if they adjusted the algorithm. Would they do that,
Speaker 1: Will they recognize or think they have a responsibility. It's
Speaker 1: a really interesting thing to think about because it's almost
Speaker 1: like we're making something that is becoming us. It's almost
Speaker 1: like Frankenstein, that idea that whatever system we build has
Speaker 1: a part of us in it. If you build a company,
Speaker 1: it has a part of you in it. There's an
Speaker 1: energetic exchange as well. So what does that feel like
Speaker 1: when you're building a platform that millions and billions of
Speaker 1: people use. The truth is we can't afford to just
Speaker 1: diagnose the problem. And I get intrigued by that sometimes
Speaker 1: when people just want to diagnose the problem. But we
Speaker 1: need to find solutions, and here are three changes social
Speaker 1: media companies could try. The first is platforms should offer
Speaker 1: chronological feeds by default, not buried in settings, and give
Speaker 1: users transparent control to toggle between chronological and algorithmic. Facebook's
Speaker 1: own studies show chronological feeds reduce political polarization and misinformation exposure,
Speaker 1: though engagement does drop. The second thing they can do
Speaker 1: is actually probably my favorite. Add friction before sharing. For example,
Speaker 1: read before retweet prompts, share limits, cooling off periods on
Speaker 1: viral posts. Imagine you couldn't share something until you add
Speaker 1: read it in full. Imagine you can share something until
Speaker 1: you'd what's that video in full? Twitter's twenty twenty read
Speaker 1: before retweet experiment led to a forty percent increase in
Speaker 1: people opening articles before sharing. WhatsApps forwarding limits dramatically slowed
Speaker 1: misinformation in India. This could actually make a difference because
Speaker 1: not only are we misinforming others, we're underinformed ourselves. If
Speaker 1: you're retweeting something just based on the headline and have
Speaker 1: no idea what's inside of it, we're now propelling ideas
Speaker 1: that we don't fully grasp and understand. And number three
Speaker 1: require algorithmic transparency and independent audits. Companies must publish how
Speaker 1: recommendation systems prioritize content and allow external researchers to study
Speaker 1: the impacts. The EU's Digital Services Act is already moving
Speaker 1: this way, requiring large platforms to open their algorithms to scrutiny.
Speaker 1: Now what do we do about the human nature issue?
Speaker 1: I want to share with you one of my favorite stories.
Speaker 1: A student once asked the Buddha, what do you gain
Speaker 1: from meditation? He said nothing. The student asked them, why
Speaker 1: do you meditate if you gain nothing? The Buddha replied,
Speaker 1: I don't meditate because of what I gain. I meditate
Speaker 1: because of what I lose. I lose anger, I lose envy,
Speaker 1: I lose ego. If the algorithm is made of us,
Speaker 1: then changing it doesn't start with code, It starts with character.
Speaker 1: We have to remember that we are wired for generosity
Speaker 1: but educated for greed. When will we finally start teaching
Speaker 1: emotional mastery in schools? How long before we start teaching
Speaker 1: critical thinking at an early age. Maybe the real test
Speaker 1: isn't to build a happier network, it's to build happier users.
Speaker 1: We built a machine to know us, and it became
Speaker 1: us when we started on purpose. There are only three
Speaker 1: things that went viral, cats and dogs. Sorry to put
Speaker 1: them in the same group, babies and people taking their
Speaker 1: clothes off. I had the innocent intention the naive vision
Speaker 1: of making wisdom go viral. Today, we do over five
Speaker 1: hundred million views across platforms every month, not playing into
Speaker 1: rage bait, not trying to get pivot at be angry.
Speaker 1: What does it show me? It shows me that people
Speaker 1: will choose healthier options if they're available, if it's presented
Speaker 1: to them in a digestible way. People will choose a
Speaker 1: salad if they know why it's better for them, and
Speaker 1: if it's available and has a great dressing. It's our
Speaker 1: role to not play into the fear and find ways
Speaker 1: to make love more attractive and accessible. It's so easy
Speaker 1: to sell fear, It's so easy to sell negativity, it's
Speaker 1: so easy to sell gossip. But the truth is, why
Speaker 1: sell the things that sell people short? Why not provide
Speaker 1: them with alternatives that are healthy, strengthening, empowering, that give
Speaker 1: them the tools to make a difference in their life.
Speaker 1: Here's the good news. Algorithms do not fully decide your fate.
Speaker 1: They're predictive, not deterministic. They rely on your past clicks.
Speaker 1: But you can override them by searching, subscribing to diverse sources,
Speaker 1: and consciously engaging with content outside of your bubble. So
Speaker 1: I want you to take a look at a new account.
Speaker 1: I started in the for you page. The for you
Speaker 1: page is pretty simple. It's beautiful imagery. It's introducing me
Speaker 1: to a couple of scenery, and as I scroll down,
Speaker 1: you start to see more of what the average person
Speaker 1: would see. The for you page as you go deeper
Speaker 1: shows you everything from political podcasts, shows me people working out,
Speaker 1: shows me influencer content. Now I'm going to show you
Speaker 1: how easy it is to change your for you page
Speaker 1: because this page is so visual. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: it through finding quotes and also, you know I love quotes,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go follow some quotes. I'm going
Speaker 1: to like some quotes, going to like another quote, I'm
Speaker 1: going to hover over it for a while. This is
Speaker 1: really important to actually hover over the quote, to actually
Speaker 1: read it, to actually be present with it. And now
Speaker 1: I'm even going to share a quote with a friend
Speaker 1: who's now going to think they have an issue because
Speaker 1: I just shared some wisdom with them. When I refresh
Speaker 1: check out my for you page, it's pretty much all quotes.
Speaker 1: Through three to four simple steps, I transformed my for
Speaker 1: you page. This is almost a cleansing, filtering process that
Speaker 1: I recommend you do. It's simple. I want you to
Speaker 1: follow five people you wouldn't usually follow. Agency isn't eliminated,
Speaker 1: it's eroded by habit. People who intentionally curate their feeds,
Speaker 1: limit usage, or diversify inputs show significantly less polarization. The
Speaker 1: second thing I want you to do is hover over
Speaker 1: and comment on five pieces of content you want to
Speaker 1: see more of your offline life still matters. Real books,
Speaker 1: real conversations, and communities can counteract the digital echo chamber.
Speaker 1: And number three, I want you to share five pieces
Speaker 1: of content you wouldn't usually and see how that changes
Speaker 1: your algorithm. Number four, don't look at your phone first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning. It's like letting one hundred strangers
Speaker 1: walk into your bedroom before you've brush your teeth or
Speaker 1: washed your face. You would never do that in real life,
Speaker 1: don't do it online. And five be present with joy.
Speaker 1: Celebrate your friend's wins and accomplishments. Stop overreacting to negativity
Speaker 1: and underreacting to joy. We remember the bad times more
Speaker 1: than the good times, because when we lose, we cry
Speaker 1: for a month, and when we win, we celebrate for
Speaker 1: a night. Here's what I want you to remember when
Speaker 1: you like something. You're telling the algorithm show me more
Speaker 1: of this. When you hover over something, you're saying to
Speaker 1: the algorithm, I pay attention when you show me this.
Speaker 1: When you comment on something, you're saying, this is really
Speaker 1: important to me. And when you share it off the platform,
Speaker 1: you're saying, fill my feed with this. You're co creating
Speaker 1: your algorithm. You're actually coding it. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: thoughts comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald. He said, the test
Speaker 1: of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold
Speaker 1: two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time
Speaker 1: and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example,
Speaker 1: he said, be able to see that things are hopeless
Speaker 1: and yet be determined to make them otherwise. That second
Speaker 1: part is so needed right now, That's what our stories need,
Speaker 1: accepting that things are tough, things are really hard, and
Speaker 1: at the same time reminding each other that you can
Speaker 1: make a change, You can transform your life, you can
Speaker 1: take accountability, you can take action, you do have agency.
Speaker 1: Reminding the world that extraordinary things have always been achieved
Speaker 1: by a group of ordinary people. I'll leave you with this.
Speaker 1: Imagine you walk into a party. At first, it looks fun,
Speaker 1: people laughing, music playing, stories being told. But then you
Speaker 1: notice something strange. Everywhere you turn, someone's doing better than you,
Speaker 1: someone richer, someone prettier, someone with more friends, more followers,
Speaker 1: more success. You walk into another room, and this one
Speaker 1: feels worse. The room is full of arguments, everyone's shouting,
Speaker 1: no one's listening, and the louder and angrier someone is
Speaker 1: the bigger the crowd around them. That's when it hits you.
Speaker 1: You never chose to come to this room. You were
Speaker 1: invited by the algorithm. That's the cruel genius of social media.
Speaker 1: It doesn't force us into comparison. It discovers we're already
Speaker 1: drawn to it. It doesn't create division, It learns that
Speaker 1: anger holds our gaze longer than joy. The algorithm didn't
Speaker 1: create outrage. It turned outrage into entertainment. And here's the
Speaker 1: question only you can answer. When you pick up your
Speaker 1: phone tonight, are you walking back into that same party
Speaker 1: or will you finally leave? Thank you for listening. I
Speaker 1: hope you've subscribed. Share this episode with someone who needs
Speaker 1: to hear it, And remember I'm forever in your corner
Speaker 1: and I'm always rooting for you. If you love this episode,
Speaker 1: you will also love my interview with Charles Douhig on
Speaker 1: how to hack your brain, change any habit effortlessly, and
Speaker 1: the secret to making better decisions. Look, am I hesitating
Speaker 1: on this because I'm scared of making the choice, because
Speaker 1: I'm scared of doing the work, Or am I sitting
Speaker 1: with this because it just doesn't feel right yet