Have you ever noticed how, without even realising it, we end up in an almost perfect choreography dictated by some algorithm? We wake up, pick up our mobile phone and are greeted by a series of posts, adverts and suggestions so meticulously chosen that we might even believe they know what we think, how we live or what we want in our daily lives (!).
But is it really us who are pulling the strings of life1 of the digital platforms… or are they manipulating us?
When the feed betrays us
One of these days, a good friend with whom we share a workspace (working from home is so 2020!) decided to share a photo of the Ria Formosa on her Instagram profile, accompanied by a short text on interior design linked to the use of organic materials. She waited for the usual likes and comments, but received only a few sparse notifications. As we work face-to-face, she commented on what had happened and expressed her astonishment. Now, us being us, we decided to take a look and realised that said post had only reached a fraction of the audience it normally does, without any prior warning. But why?
Social platforms favour content that generates an immediate reaction – if a post doesn’t gather a certain number of Likes or comments in the first few hours, the algorithm automatically reduces its reach, limiting it to narrower circles. Each interaction we make – be it a Like, a comment, a share – serves as a trigger to increase visibility, but their absence slows down distribution. And thus, we end up involuntarily influencing what we see and what we show.
FOMO Mediterranean style
Living and working in the Algarve has quite a bit of Mediterranean community about it: cafés where you greet everyone, markets full of warmth and human contact and an almost ancestral ‘can-do’ (‘desenrasca’ in Portuguese) spirit that defines us. However, this same spirit, when transported to the digital world, feeds the infamous FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
Our friend Rita, who teaches surf lessons in Sagres, told us that the other day she woke up to 15 messages on WhatsApp: “I saw you in Scott’s story catching waves at dawn and I didn’t know!” (just to clarify, Scott is a student of hers who has just started practising the sport). It was a somewhat algorithmic post, pushed by geolocation and the high number of interactions it received early in the morning. The result? Early riser tourists came ‘knocking on her door’ at 7.30 am and they didn’t even have lessons booked! A blessing or a curse? Well, it depends on how you look at it: at the end of the month, it translated into boards rented and extra lessons given; but to manage it all without despairing it was necessary to… ‘desenrascar’ (make do).
And why was that? Precisely because of the much-talked-about FOMO, which is basically the anxious feeling we have that others may be having rewarding experiences that we’re missing out on. Needless to say, this can lead to a desire of being continuously connected to what others are doing, especially through social media.
Puppets of engagement
When we talk about ‘digital puppets’, the idea is not at all conspiratorial. It’s about realising that every ‘like’ we give and every story we watch reinforces patterns in a loop. TikTok, for instance, measures the time we spend watching a video and even the rate at which we scroll with our thumbs to decide what to show us next.
Imagine it as if it were a puppet theatre – we are the audience, but we are also the puppets. And the stage? Well, that’s our social media feed. Each pull of the string (a Like, a comment, a click on a link) moves the show forward or backwards. In a sort of improvised case study of ours in Tavira, a small local restaurant noticed that every time it shared a new feature of its menu in a post, there was a spike in bookings over the next six hours, but only if it included an emoji 🍽️ in the text. Without the emoji, the algorithm prioritised posts that users viewed longer. Small nuances that, when translated into reservations, made all the difference.
When disconnecting is rebalancing
If digital strings move us, unplugging them from time to time brings us back to the responsibility of pulling them ourselves, not the algorithm. In some municipalities in the Algarve, there are already people promoting ‘Screen-Free Day’ in schools and after-school clubs, and elsewhere there are those who advise people to establish a ‘detox ritual’ at lunchtime – no mobile phone, just a good plate of monkfish rice (a typical, and delicious, Algarvean plate) and a chat with friends or work colleagues.
Ultimately, it’s all about finding the balance between the digital and real worlds. But nowadays, that’s easier said than done, right? A practical suggestion? Choose a period of the day (for example, from 1.00 pm to 2.00 pm) when you mute your notifications and concentrate on real contact – a phone call to a family member or friend for no particular reason, a walk around downtown or the historic city centre, or simply gazing out at our Ria Formosa, which is always right next to us, but which we so rarely look at just to see it. Give it a try and you’ll realise that it’s you who decides how to move the strings and not the technology.
Local businesses – taming the algorithm without losing your soul
For small businesses, understanding these ‘invisible strings’ is crucial. It’s not enough to be online; you have to know how to be ‘there’. Mrs Natália, the lady from the vegetable stall that we talked about in one of our earlier articles, recently learned that sharing a behind-the-scenes story – her selecting the best courgettes for the day – generates more interactions than an impeccably organised post with professional photos. It’s the charm of Algarvian authenticity beating the algorithm.
As for paid campaigns, the biggest investment doesn’t always win. The secret lies in properly segmenting your target audience (by location, behaviours, interests and even times of peak online activity, which you can get by studying the insights of your pages/ profiles on social media) and adjusting the content according to user reaction. It’s almost like watering plants – if we see that one of them gets more light (Likes) with a certain approach (short video, informal text, questions, etc), we continue along those lines. But always without forgetting our voice, because wanting to sound somewhere in the digital world like something you are not in real life will be uncomfortable, to say the least, and will always sound fake (even if we don’t consciously identify it as such).
The last string: our free will
In the end, puppets only move if we allow their strings to be ‘manipulated’ (and yes, the use of the double meaning of this word here is completely intentional!). We can and should question what we see on social media, limit our exposure time and opt for content that makes us feel closer to our values. A scrutinised, conscious and thoughtful feed is the antidote to unconscious manipulation (see?!).
What if, for instance, before clicking ‘Follow’ on a new account, we asked ourselves “does this add something to my life?”; or before hitting ‘Like’, we stopped for a second to realise whether the post really speaks to us rather than just being another reflection of what the algorithm wants to see in us? Would we reach a higher state of consciousness and become enlightened beings? Not by a long shot! But perhaps we would be more aware of what social media we want and, above all, more responsible in our role in each of them.
Yes, we are puppets connected to platforms that want to maximise our screen time. But just like those who manipulate puppets in the theatre, we always have the ability – and the responsibility – to pull or cut the strings that limit us.
Try pulling your own digital strings for the rest of this week and see how it feels!
1 It was probably in Asia that the first puppets (marionettes) appeared, although it’s not clear whether in China, India or Indonesia. In Burma, string puppets were very important, especially in palaces, and their movement had to imitate that of human beings. It takes many strings to do this and some strings are more important than others. The strings of life are those that support the puppet’s weight and help it mimic the movement of breathing.
(source: Museu da Marioneta – www.museudamarioneta.pt)
