Algorithms are everywhere in our daily life. We can let them roll over us or we can attempt to collaborate and guide them.
It’s not just that Spotify’s recommendations tend to be pleasant because it has a lot of data about me. It’s that Spotify has the listening history of 675 million people, whose interests may overlap with mine in countless different ways. Over the years, I’ve developed a set of habits that help me hone those recommendations — things like making playlists, rejecting recommendations I don’t like, exploring artists’ catalogs, and maybe most importantly, digging through other people’s playlists.
This is what I call lean-forward listening. While it’s easy enough to click on Discover Weekly every Monday, lean back and listen to the whole thing like a radio show, and then move on to the next playlist, the more effort you put into curating your experience, the better the algorithms will work next time. At the very least, you’ll find your way onto a playlist that algorithms didn’t create.
I purposely jump between genres to keep all the various lists and feeds fresh and diverse. It works for the most part. I’d go so far to say this might be an aspect of modern media literacy: possessing an awareness that the media you’re consuming is controlled by others and understanding how you can influence it matters.