Kenneth Glad
Every time you unlock your phone, an invisible system goes to work serving up exactly what will keep your eyes glued to the screen. Millions of people accept this endless stream of tailored videos as a normal part of daily life. Now, one country wants to give people an escape route.
The Australian government recently proposed new legislation that would force tech companies to let users turn off content algorithms, so Guardian reporter Caitlin Cassidy decided to see what this digital landscape would look like.
To test this future reality, she used a hidden Instagram setting to disable all artificial intelligence recommendations for a full 24 hours.
To make the experiment authentic, she unfollowed everyone she did not know in real life, clearing out celebrity chefs and comedy accounts.
The results were immediate and startling. After just ten minutes of browsing her newly restricted chronological feed, Cassidy ran entirely out of new posts.
The app presented her with a message declaring she had reached the end of her updates for the past month. The sudden lack of material left her feeling completely unmoored, and she kept opening the application purely out of habit only to find an empty screen.
An empty experience
Without the constant push of viral clips, her remaining social circle felt surprisingly hollow. Instead of genuine life moments, friends mostly shared updates about personal projects or corporate partnerships.
She observed that people mostly used the platform to promote themselves rather than truly connect. This boring reality highlights a core issue Australian lawmakers want to fix, as officials fear unchecked algorithms trap users in dangerous online spaces.
Regulators point to the rapid spread of extreme political views and harmful body image trends. Cassidy admitted her own feed mostly featured harmless content like reality television recaps and dancing dogs.
Even so, the sheer volume of endless entertainment took a heavy toll on her daily focus, prompting her to read a book on her lunch break instead of staring at a screen. Stepping away made her realise the constant digital consumption had a hidden cost.
Her financial conclusion was that the algorithm was “numbing my brain and turning my own thoughts into slop.”
Sources: The Guardian
