I’m sure this has happened to you:
YouTube (or TikTok or Instagram) recommends you a slightly different video than what you usually watch.
Maybe it’s about a baby laughing, or an impressive skill, or an exotic dish.
You watch it, and then the algorithm recommends you a similar one, which you also watch. You want more, binge watch a few other videos about the same topic and, after a while, you realize you have a life and get off your device.
Now, can you guess what will be waiting for you the next time you open the app?
Of course! More baby/skill/food videos. You’ve trained the algorithm to provide you these kinds of videos.
How? It’s quite stupid actually. You’ve engaged with a type of video, and the algorithm assumes that you want more of that.
Sounds reasonable? Cool, now here’s a thought:
What if your subconscious has a similar algorithm?
Obviously it’s much more complex, but try it out. You engage with a thought of a specific car, maybe a Tesla, and suddenly you see them all around, you find yourself getting all those thoughts: “Do electric cars have gears?”, “What color would I choose?”, “The only problem with electric cars are long drives”…
It’s like you’ve activated something that you can’t stop. Unless…
Unless you stop caring about that. “Yeah, I could not afford a Tesla even if I wanted to”. Then, the thoughts just silently fade away. Like your YouTube home screen returning to normal after you’re tired of watching silly babies for a while.
But wait, does this mean that a person who’s always worried is in part because he’s constantly engaging with worry thoughts? What about an optimist, is she telling her algorithm to send her more optimistic thoughts by expressing or thinking deeply about them?
I don’t have an absolute answer, but I know nervous thoughts have brought me more nervousness and practicing gratitude has surprised me with grateful thoughts in the past.
So maybe we’re feeding the algorithm (and now I’m talking about our BrainTube) with what we decide to engage with. Could it be that engaging less with thoughts you don’t want will get rid of some or most of them? And spending more time with the ones you’d like, will make more of them pop up?.
It certainly checks out for YouTube, but would you like to know if this works for you?
Well, engage with this idea for a while and see what recommendations you get from your algorithm.
PS: If you want to explore further this idea, I recommend you 2 books that are much more researched than this article and indirectly talk about this concept: Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz (there’s a whole section about how your subconscious acts like a computer) and The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris which is a great intro to ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a therapy approach used by many psychologists that uses engagement and disengagement as a powerful way to deal with your thoughts.