Beyond the Algorithm

“This aggregation appears sleek, sophisticated…but it has an inarguable underbelly.”

ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA, it was in August of 2005 when Pandora Radio first launched to the public. This tracks with my early memories of the streaming service, which occurred during a chapter of my life post-college, when I was living back at home while simultaneously trying to strut my independence.

In the beginning, everything about Pandora felt fresh and novel, and distinctly like a rather sharp contrast to my bulky CD carrying case that I mindlessly traipsed out to my car, back into my bedroom, and out again.

The premise – that you could simply put in a song or an artist that you loved and a curated playlist would follow – seemed intuitive. Organic even. So much so, that when Pandora missed the mark and played a song that felt off, it became instinctual to skip it.

Heaven forbid we listened to something that didn’t succinctly jive with how we were feeling.

In retrospect, for many of us, services like Pandora were our first exposure to the notion of an algorithm. We told the tech what we liked and it used a series of rules to make other educated assumptions.

Rather amazing to think what could be deduced about my music preferences with a slight nod to an affection for Billy Joel.

But the algorithm was, of course, noticeably on point.

And they (plural) are now, of course, even more fine-tuned and engrained in nearly every aspect of our lives.

So while it’s common to think of algorithms as they pertain to our social media feeds, I think it’s time to get our heads out of the sand about the way – quite frankly – that we’re being played by our devices. All in the name of convenience and customization, our phones now make suggestions on what we might like from the socks we’re ordering off Amazon to the restaurant for that night’s takeout.