FedByDefault

  The three questions won't beat the behemoth algorithm.  True, but that is not the point. The three questions are not going to defeat big tech. The algorithm isn't sitting in a server farm somewhere, nervous about what I built. Meta has tens of thousands of engineers and decades of behavioral data and more money than most governments. A mom with three questions is not going to out-engineer that. So why bother. Because beating it was never the point. The algorithm still runs whether you ask the questions or not. The feed is still engineered. The slot machine is still in your pocket. The platforms are not dismantled by awareness. They were not built to be. What the three questions do is much smaller and much more honest than defeating anything. They make you a less automatic target. That's it. That's the whole claim. A person who pauses and thinks about who made this, who benefits from my attention, what do they want me to feel, is harder to move than a person who doesn...

  In 2004 Morgan Spurlock ate McDonald's three times a day for thirty days and filmed what happened to his body. Super Size Me was a sensation. Disturbing, funny, impossible to look away from. It won awards. It changed conversations. McDonald's quietly retired the Supersize option shortly after it came out. A year later a woman named Soso Whaley did the same experiment differently. She ate McDonald's every day for a month too. She counted calories, made reasonable choices, and lost weight doing it. You probably haven't heard of her. Her documentary didn't go anywhere. Not because she was wrong. She wasn't wrong. But because a person making informed choices and coming out fine is not a story. It doesn't have an arc. Nobody needs to be saved. The audience has nowhere to put their anxiety. We are wired for the dramatic version. The cautionary tale. The before and after. The thing that is killing us. Here is what actually happened with fast food over the next tw...

  How to Talk to Kids About the Feed Using Something They Already Understand Start with this question. What do you do when a commercial comes on? They will tell you. They skip it. They look at their phone. They leave the room. They do anything except watch it. Ask them why. They will say something like it's just trying to sell me something. Or I already know what it wants. Or it's boring. That is the whole lesson right there. They already have it. Now ask them this. What about the videos you watch on YouTube. The posts you scroll through. The content that shows up in your feed. Is any of that trying to sell you something. They will probably say no. Or some of it. The ads obviously. But not the other stuff. This is where it gets interesting. Tell them that everyone on social media is selling something. They are just not all selling a product. Some are selling a version of themselves. Look at my life. Look at how funny I am. Look at what I believe. They need you to watch because ...

  There is a scene in Jurassic Park that seems spot on for our situation, where the algorithm is concerned.  The chaos theorist, the one who was right from the beginning is played by Jeff Goldblum. He sits across from the park's creator and says "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." Hammond waves it off. He's proud. He built something extraordinary. The miracle is real. The problems are manageable. Then the raptors get out. Remind you of anything. I have been watching the AI companies with their press releases and TED talks. The carefully worded statements about safety and responsibility and the tremendous potential for human flourishing. The interviews where the founders look just slightly haunted by uncertainty. They look like they heard something moving around in the dark outside the building. The miracle is real. They built it. It works. And now they are in the kitchen, backs against th...

An old slogan explains a new problem. You are what you eat. People have been saying it since the 1800s. It took about a century for nutrition science to prove it was right. The principle is simple. What you put into your body becomes your body. Repeat the input long enough and it shapes the output, your cells, your metabolism, your health. The food doesn't ask permission. It just does what it does. The same thing is happening to your mind. Right now. You think what you scroll. Psychologists have treated attention as a limited resource since the 1800s. Not a passive receiver but an active one. You only have so much of it. Whatever repeatedly captures it gets to shape how you think, what you feel, and how you behave. That is not a metaphor. It is the mechanism. Heavy social media use is linked to structural changes in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. They are the parts of the brain tied to impulse control and emotional regulation. These are not dramatic changes. T...

  Are You Being Used?  A 7 Day  Audit  If your stomach was regularly upset, the first thing you would do is look at what you've been eating. If your back started aching you'd look at your activities. If your phone use is making you uncomfortable it's time to look at your internet use and how it's affecting you. You wouldn't stop eating because your digestion was off. You wouldn't stop moving because your back hurt. Eliminating the source entirely isn't the realistic answer. The internet isn't going anywhere. Neither are you. But something needs to change. You already know that. That's why you're here. This audit looks at behavior. At the moments you reached without deciding to. At what you felt before and after. At the patterns you didn't know were patterns until someone asked you to name them. Seven days. Honest questions. No detox, screen time limits. No wellness program. Just a clear look at what's been happening. On the final day, y...