Crisis Mode
Platforms thrive on making you feel bad.
"So we say to ourselves, “With one more ‘refresh’ this algorithm may recommend me something decent.” Perhaps, on Instagram, I have seen pictures of yet another influencer on vacation at the top of my feed. I am irritated because I had logged on while at work in the hope of seeing friends posting “stories” about their day. Maybe I feel envy that someone else is on vacation, irritation at their privilege, or anxiety about my own salary. Regardless, rather than closing Instagram, I attempt to overcome those unpleasant feelings by refreshing my feed. In this instance, I have functionally overcome suspension; the only problem is that what arrives is another, newer feeling of suspension. On platforms, every update, regardless of content, mainly serves the purpose of necessitating further updates.
Just as algorithms are concerned only with their own reproduction — that is, the update — ugly feelings “operate” in the same way. Anxiety, irritation, and envy have a remarkable inability to be resolved. Ugly feelings mirror the platforms that enable them. In the grip of endless updates, every advent of the “new” can seem to offer the possibility of overcoming ugly feelings at the same time as each update simultaneously re-creates them."