The Personalization Trap: Are Algorithms Locking Us Into Worse Mental Health States?

Why Is the Personalization Trap Harmful?

Your feed on any social platform is different from everyone else’s. It is curated according to your usage behaviors, which basically means the content you interact with the most.

While that sounds incredible, research says that the algorithms used to create such personalized social media experiences may be doing us more harm than good.

Here are some reasons why.

Echo Chambers and the Illusion of a Shared Reality

The term “echo chamber” explains the concept of your social media feed repeatedly showing you similar content that you interact with and filtering out opposing perspectives.

The more you interact with a certain type of content, the more the algorithm shows you that type. You may see it so much that you even begin to believe everybody else thinks the same way as you do. It is an illusion of consensus, while in reality, people do not feel the same way.

For example, researchers from USC Viterbi’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI) found that online social platforms create a feedback loop of eating disorder content that traps vulnerable individuals within pro-anorexia echo chambers. They described such content as “the most harmful on social media.”^[3]

Negativity Bias

Negativity bias is the brain’s natural tendency to give more attention to negative information than to equally intense positive information. It has an evolutionary basis because, for our ancestors, paying close attention to threats was needed for survival.

Social media algorithms try to maximize your attention through the same primitive behavior.

Negative content around fear, outrage, or tragic topics triggers stronger reactions from users (likes, shares, and so on), which are seen as high-value engagement signals.

A large-scale study published in Scientific Reports analyzed 95,282 news articles alongside 579 million Facebook and Twitter posts. It reported that social media users are 1.91 times more likely to share links to negative news articles than positive ones.^[4]

Put simply, the algorithm works to keep you engaged rather than make you feel good. And people who already have strained mental health are more affected by the negativity bias. For instance, a study on information sharing found that individuals with depression are more inclined to share negative emotional content compared to the general population.^[5]

Doomscrolling

Social media creates a compulsive habit of continuously consuming large amounts of content, reel after reel, even when you don’t really want to. The algorithm is optimized to increase your average time spent on the platform.

The majority of the feed you’re scrolling through has emotionally charged content. Every time you see alarming content, the brain’s amygdala, which is responsible for threat detection, triggers the body’s stress response.

Doomscrolling essentially fills your body with cortisol, the stress hormone. So it’s linked to worse physical and mental health outcomes.

Psychology Behind Why We Can’t Look Away

Part of the personalized social media feed is influenced by user behavior. However, there is growing evidence for the fact that the structure of social media apps is designed to make us stay on them.

Social media feeds use variable-reward schedules. In other words, every new piece of content you consume has something novel, something unpredictable, that triggers a steady release of dopamine.

Research finds that excessive social media use can literally rewire the nucleus accumbens (the brain’s reward and pleasure center) and the prefrontal cortex (responsible for impulse control) in similar ways to substance addiction.^[6] So the more you scroll through what the algorithm shows you, the harder it gets to stop yourself.

Just a few years ago, if you’d scroll through your Instagram feed for a while, you’d see a “You’re all caught up” sign. This would prompt you to put your phone down. That has now been replaced by infinite scroll just to maintain user engagement for longer than they want.

Who Is Most Vulnerable to Social Media Emotional Manipulation?

Almost everybody uses social media, but not everyone ends up in a mental health crisis, right?

For many users, the platforms are great for maintaining their social connections with long-distance friends and family. Some groups of people, however, are disproportionately harmed by algorithm-driven content.

Teenagers are the most vulnerable users on any major social media platform because their brains are not yet fully developed. The average U.S. teenager spends 3.5 hours per day on social media. And, in 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a formal advisory stating that among youth, social media use may cause:^[2]

• Body image issues.
• Eating disorders.
• Disrupted sleep.

Young women, in particular, are most affected by Instagram and TikTok, which are heavily saturated with appearance-based content.

A study conducted among 14-year-olds found that social media use predicted higher scores for girls more than boys in all of the following:^[7]

• Poor sleep
• Online harassment
• Poor body image
• Low self-esteem
• Depressive symptoms

People who have some sort of prior mental health history are also vulnerable to the harmful effects of social media. The algorithm cannot distinguish between content that is engaging because it is interesting and content that is engaging because it triggers an emotional response in vulnerable individuals.

In a study of 5,395 adults in the United States, people with minimal depressive symptoms who reported use of Snapchat, Facebook, or TikTok were more likely to have increased depressive symptoms on a later survey.^[8]

Practical Strategies to Reclaim Your Feed

You can diminish the worsening impact of algorithms on your mental health by setting healthy boundaries for your social media usage. This applies to both the time you spend on social media (the quantity) and the kind of content you consume (quality).

Here are some practical tips for reclaiming your feed:

• Go through your following list on each platform and unfollow or mute triggering accounts.

• Use content preference tools to actively tell the algorithm what you don’t want to see. On TikTok, you can reset your entire algorithm under Settings and Privacy → Content Preferences → Refresh your For You feed.

• Set strict usage time limits for your social apps. A trial found that limiting Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to ten minutes per platform per day led to reduced loneliness and depression over three weeks compared to a control group.^[9]

• Establish a “no-phone morning routine” for the first 30–60 minutes of the day, and a similar no-phone wind-down before bed for at least 30–60 minutes before sleep.

• Actively engage with any positive, helpful content you see on your feed. Mindlessly scrolling without purpose is associated with worse mental health outcomes than active, purposeful use.