How Algorithms Reshape Our Reality

If language shapes our world, what happens when algorithms control language?

If “the limits of our language are the limits of our world,” like Wittgenstein observed, then the algorithm’s impact on our communication styles may be subtly reshaping our reality.

And to be clear, this is all written with a big, capital m-Maybe.

I can’t make claims about how anyone else experiences the world. And definitely not about how “we” do, in some collective sense.

So I just want to ask a question: if platforms are amplifying certain ways of communicating while suppressing others, how might that shape the kinds of thoughts we’re able to have?

And how might that shift the way we move through – and make sense of – the world around us?

The Algorithm Prefers…

Communication that engages fight-or-flight

Rage, panic, indignation… these emotions win in an algorithm-driven feed.

When emotionally charged communication becomes the most visible, we lose access to the linguistic space between the extremes. Communication filled with nuance and ‘maybe’ gets crowded out by certainty, urgency, and alarm.

The world appears perpetually crisis-laden.

A perception that’ll become self-fulfilling over time. When we consistently expect crisis and conflict, it’s inevitable that we’ll create it: interpreting everything through a lens of threat and responding with the same urgency and defensiveness we expect from others.

Outliers over the representative

The most extreme case… the wildest outlier… the most shocking example – these are what break through on social media feeds.

When our information diet consists primarily of edge cases presented as if they’re typical, our sense of what’s common gets completely distorted. The world feels more dangerous, more broken, more extreme than it actually is; we’ve lost access to what normal is.

What spreads over what’s real

Viral content spreads because it has qualities that draw engagement and get people to share it.

This is memetics in action – ideas that survive aren’t the truest ones, they’re the most transmissible ones. Compressed into forms sticky enough to spread.

When this happens repeatedly across millions of feeds, the shared information environment becomes dominated by whatever linguistic patterns are most contagious, not most true.

Our collective reality gets constructed from the ideas that spread fastest, not the ones that map most closely to what’s actually happening.

But deeper than that, when catchy beats accurate for long enough, we may lose our ability to decipher the truth through evidence or deliberation. And instead, decide what’s true based on what feels most obviously, intuitively correct.

The problem: both sides of any issue get fed their own version of “obviously true” ideas, each packaged for maximum stickiness within their respective bubbles.

So we end up in a world where everyone feels like they have access to truth – because the ideas in their feed feel so self-evidently right – while simultaneously inhabiting completely incompatible realities.

Labels over deep understanding

Complexity needs to be packaged into neat containers before it can really travel on algorithm-driven feeds.

Which post has more viral potential?

The post explaining the nuanced economic positions, cultural shifts, and institutional failures that led certain demographics to vote a particular way…

Or the post calling them ‘deplorables’ or ‘snowflakes’ or ‘fascists?’

Over time, as labels dominate our feeds, they begin to replace the fuller concepts they once pointed toward. Reality starts to feel like it’s made of sides and teams.

Clarity over accuracy

“I think there might be some merit to both sides here” may get a few likes.

“These people are completely evil and anyone who disagrees is an idiot” goes viral.

When discovery-based language stops being rewarded in favor of confident positions, the inquiring perspective itself may get lost in the weeds.

Complexity can start to feel like confusion or dishonesty rather than an accurate reflection of reality. The world begins to seem simpler than it actually is – not because it became simple, but because we’ve lost the language of nuance.

Reaction over reflection

The hot take posted within minutes of an event will always outcompete the thoughtful analysis posted three days later.

Speed signals relevance; deliberation signals you’ve already missed the conversation.

When immediate response becomes the only temporally viable form of engagement, considered thought gets selected out of the environment. Reality starts to feel like an endless stream of things demanding instant judgment, and we lose the cultural permission to say “I don’t know yet” or “I need to think about this.”

Before/after over the messy middle

“I was broke, now I’m rich” gets engagement; the 47 mundane months between those states don’t.

Transformations compress beautifully. The messy middle is only interesting when it’s been packaged into a compelling arc with a clear destination.

So we learn to compress our own experiences to fit this template – maybe even while we’re still living them. We think in before/after terms before the “after” has arrived.

And when we never see examples of unresolved struggle, our own ongoing confusion starts to feel like evidence that something is uniquely wrong with us – rather than evidence that we’re living through the part that doesn’t make good content.

We lose the concept of gradual accumulation. Reality starts to feel like it operates in discrete jumps rather than slow compounding.

We begin seeing claims like ‘How to 5x Your Writing Overnight” replace “How to Become a Better Writer Through Daily Practice.”

We lose patience for anything that doesn’t deliver immediate results.

Personal narrative over abstract analysis

“Here’s what happened to ME” outperforms “here’s a systemic pattern.”

“This person is destroying everything” outperforms “this is a failure caused by bad incentives.”

Emotional storytelling posts “nearly double the engagement rate” compared to institutional content (source).

When personal anecdotes consistently drown out structural explanations, maybe we stop thinking about forces larger than personal choice. The world begins to look like a collection of individual moral failures and bad actors rather than interconnected systems we might actually be able to address collectively.

Identity over honesty

Tribal signals – “this is who I am” – outperform dispassionate reasoning.

Posts that mark us as part of a group get more engagement than posts exploring an idea without taking a clear side.

It leads to a world where communication becomes a way to affirm our in-group, rather than for discussion, sharing ideas, or thinking something through.

The self becomes synonymous with the stances we take. Disagreeing feels like betrayal – of others, or of self.

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And I’m sure this is only the start of the list.