Filterworld
How Algorithms Flattened Culture
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3.9 • 11 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.
"[Filterworld] is about how algorithms changed culture…[Chayka asks] what is taste? What is a sense of aesthetics? And what happens to it when it collides with the homogenizing digital reality in which we now live."—Ezra Klein
From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.
This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.” Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.
In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions arise: What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?
To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.
Customer Reviews
This or That, who chooses?
Kyle Chayka’s “Filterworld” is a relevant and unnecessarily long discourse on the use of algorithms. Chayka delves into the use of algorithms across various technology mediums. Specifically, social networks and media streaming services. His hypothesis is that they are entirely reshaping what culture means and who gets to define it. The book's core thread can be summed up as follows. Algorithms symbolize the commodification of everything into one homogeneous mass. Killing off the organic joy of discovery.
It is ironic that social networks in particular are actually killing off organic development of tastes and curation. Chayka uses simple language and prose to bring the reader along. He makes even the most technical parts accessible to the laymen. A lot of his analysis uses data to trace technology trends and corresponding cultural changes. At times Chayka is overly nostalgic and unbending in describing technology's assault on personal taste. The regulatory and consumer protections topics are perhaps the best part of the book. They are not as subjective as the other chapters.
I have doubts about Chayka's argument. I especially disagree with him describing recent cultural shifts as purely outcomes of algorithmic influence. His analysis on coffee shops is a prime example. He fails to attribute the rise of the 3rd Space, modern coffee shop, started with the Starbucks growth and not just Instagram. Along with the fact that people often copy what is successful no matter how they discover it. Some might say it is Western Capitalism that perverts everything and technology mediums are just a symptom of that disease.
Additionally, 80% of everything trends towards the mean, or is average. There is no gun at people’s heads forcing their consumption and creation decisions. Which says more about us than algorithms. As the world becomes interconnected, it’s only natural that a common taste emerges from the blending of cultures. Where I do agree with him is that the gate keeping and artificiality of what gets seen on social media is troubling. Even then he notes that people have agency and can disengage from social media. An experiment he tried himself and also details the effects in the book.
In the end this books is a reminder to live hyper local. To source from the people and places around you. Lastly, to share your own recommendations outside of social networks. We still have the freedom to make our own decisions and seek out our own experiences. While this book would have been more interesting if it focused decision making, I would still recommend it. I hope Chayka does a future edition with current reflections. Specifically, he should conduct an analysis of why people abdicate their own agency for discovery to an algorithm.
Old man yells at cloud
According to the author, culture peaked in the halcyon days of their youth. Everything that is wrong with culture can be ascribed to “algorithms”, which is defined so broadly that it can mean anything. There are some interesting conversational jumping off points in this book, but you’re better off reading a summary and talking about that.