00:00The stuff all over your feed might not actually be going viral.
00:04That road rage incident in a CVS parking lot, I probably never saw it.
00:08Neither did most people you might assume did.
00:11You might actually be seeing only a tiny personalized slice of what's happening online.
00:15Take a look.
00:16What my feed serves me probably looks way different than yours.
00:20It's not a smaller version of everyone else's.
00:22It's a different feed.
00:24Here's what that means in Instagram's own words.
00:26On its help center, Instagram explains its explore page is designed to show you content
00:32from accounts you don't follow, based on posts and other Insta profiles you've interacted
00:37with before.
00:37Translation, these algorithms aren't designed to show you what's most important, truthful,
00:43or even healthy.
00:44They're designed to predict what will keep you engaged.
00:47So when a topic is all over my feed, that tells me something about me and what catches
00:52my interest, not necessarily an indicator that this content is going viral.
00:58And the more I see stuff I like, the more I stay engaged.
01:02And the longer I stay, the more ads I see, the more data I generate, and the more valuable
01:08I am to the social media site.
01:10So the next time you tell yourself, well, just scroll for five minutes, the feed isn't just
01:15showing you what you want to see.
01:17It's learning what will make you stay.
