I was looking at the suggested videos in my Youtube stream, and noticed that many of them dealt with existential meaninglessness while others could be broadly summarized under the theme "the world is going to hell." Not exactly cheerful topics. The videos were suggested because Youtube's predictive algorithm noticed a pattern in my viewing habits during an episode of depression where I was 'doom scrolling' through this sort of content. That's a little concerning because essentially Youtube is saying "we see you're feeling bad, let's reinforce that feeling and make it worse." My mood disorder influenced my viewing habits which fed back into my depression. As I try to climb out of it, the content directed to me seems like it would prefer me to stay stuck (predictable) forever. Now I'm wondering how much algorithms that predict our preferences are actually 'programming' us to be depressed, and contributing to the erosion of our mental health.
Psychologically, we're far more likely to take note of negative events over positive ones because they represent danger or a threat from which we need to protect ourselves. This is true of people experiencing depression, but perhaps generally true of everyone to a lesser degree. But if algorithms operate on our attention, and then give us more of the same, then in general, algorithms are going to naturally skew negative. Could they be at least partly responsible for the decline in the national mood and polarization over the past decade or so? It seems likely.
Working through depression can require challenging a fixation on negative thoughts. That's not to say that we should live in a 'good vibes only' delusional state, but we need to balance the negative with the positive (look around you. Look closer. There's still a lot of good in the world, but it often comes in many small doses, not one massive kick in the teeth like bad news often does). When Youtube gets the impression that I enjoy being depressed by depressing content, it filters out more positive content, hyper-focuses on the negative and creates a very imbalanced and dismal worldview. As algorithms become more sophisticated, hopefully developers will address this issue. In the meantime, it's probably a good idea to take a look at the content being fed to you and think about it's overall effect on how you see and feel about the world (similar to the way someone with diabetes needs to reflect on how the food they consume contributes to their condition). Does it speak to you presently, or to some past version of yourself that you're trying to grow beyond? If you get an overall bad, bleak, or completely hopeless impression about life, it might be worthwhile to be a little more intentional about seeking out balance in what media you're being exposed to.