The Tangible Way: Shaking Off the Algorithm

What I’ve become more and more concerned with is how our threat systems are being triggered by media, the 24-hour news cycle, the endless scroll of social feeds. It’s obvious there’s intentional activation happening. Years ago, the saying in marketing was “sex sells.” Now it seems we live in the era of “fear sells.” And I’m betting it’s far more lucrative.

On social media and other platforms, algorithms decide what you see based on what you engage with. They show you more of those things to keep you scrolling and clicking. Because fear-based and divisive content captures attention, it gets elevated. This is how people can end up seeing more and more extreme content without even realizing it.

I can usually tell when someone’s spending a lot of time online. Their reality feels less anchored in the present moment and more shaped by the content they’ve been immersed in.

This is why I’ve been so deeply exploring The Tangible Way, how to stay grounded in realness when such strong forces are designed to capture our attention. This has all escalated so quickly in my lifetime, and I’m concerned about the impact on people who don’t realize they too are under the influence of the algorithm. We all are, every time we engage with online media.

On top of general life stress, we’re inundated with content meant to create outrage. Over time, it shapes our sense of reality. Even when we step away from our screens, the fear and anxiety often lingers.

Meanwhile, we miss what’s right here, right now. I’ve spoken with people who are in deep anxiety about perceived dangers in the world. When I gently ask whether they’re actually encountering those dangers in their daily lives or communities, most say no, they’re seeing it online.

I’m not a Pollyanna. I know there are serious issues that must be addressed. But when we disengage from our real communities and lose the ability to balance what we see online with what we live in real life, we’re in trouble.

Especially now, as AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, creating content that looks and often feels real. Even when it’s obviously AI-generated, many people can’t tell the difference.

Those of us who grew up in a time when news meant fact-based journalism, carefully researched before being reported, need to understand that this isn’t that world anymore. While good journalism still exists, the short-form, sensational content being pushed to prominence is not it. Anyone can have a platform now, and it’s easier than ever to produce professional-looking content. That doesn’t make it true. It’s often filtered through someone’s agenda.

And our brains naturally work that way too, with cognitive bias, noticing what supports our views and overlooking what doesn’t.

Knowing these things, we need to spend far more time offline, engaging in real life, in our own communities, with tangible things. That is one of the ways we can “shake off” the hold of the algorithm, coming back to the body, the senses, and the present moment.

Our brains can easily get lost in thought and lose touch with our bodies and surroundings. When I think of my dog, startled but then able to shake it off, I imagine how different it would be if she were human, ruminating on the fear, deciding that those kinds of dogs were dangerous (even though they’d done nothing), or perhaps avoiding the forest altogether because she’d convinced herself it was unsafe.

I’m so glad she has the capacity to shake it off and return to herself without that moment taking up more space. I’m also grateful she doesn’t have to deal with online media, she just lives in the moment, in the actual time that life exists.

Maybe that’s part of The Tangible Way. Learning how to shake it off too. Not by ignoring what’s hard, but by coming back to what’s real. Every time we put the phone down, step outside, take a slow breath, engage with our senses, we remind our nervous systems that we’re ok in this present moment. We can shake off the pull of the algorithm and return to the moment where life is actually happening.