What is a Slow Consumer and How Can You Be One?

A story of de-centering algorithms from how I consume content

Inspired by The Social Dilemma, I’d been more reflective lately of how I consume content. In this documentary, they particularly note how algorithms boost extreme content because of how they feed into primal emotions, which in turn make it much easier to monetize our attention.

Algorithms also build towards creator burnout, particularly for independent creators (writers, artists alike) trying to consistently top the charts in order to earn enough. You’ve likely seen pieces about how the only key to success to creating on any platform is to remain consistent — to write daily, to vlog daily.

Every daily vlogger that ever made it to the top of Youtube has quit this pattern, citing how it weighed on mental health. Writers who have tried to churn more than one article out per day have also noted the same.

It’s one thing to tell creators to stop for the sake of their own mental health. But for those who haven’t made it to the top, it’s often the only way to survive since most consumers still rely on algorithms to choose content for them.

This looks like reading what the Medium daily digest gives you. It’s allowing social media to sort timelines and dashboards for you based on fit rather than recent posts. It’s watching what Youtube recommends to you rather than the channels you’ve subscribed to.

While the algorithm still has its place in recommended great and rising creators, I’ve more consciously become a slow consumer. I call it “slow” consuming because I’m no longer hopping on the latest trends, but rather adding content that I want to consume to a queue, and ensuring that most of my time and energy goes towards supporting creators I love.

This is how I’ve become a slow consumer.

It All Started with How I Organize Podcasts

My journey to slow consumption began with podcasts. It’s the only form of media that largely doesn’t have an algorithm-centric way of promoting new podcasts or episodes.

People learn about podcasts and episodes from their friends, or on social media, or by following people who they love who eventually start their own podcast. Word-of-mouth is still the biggest way of promoting a podcast.

It’s the last one standing, and standing on wobbly legs as Anchor / Spotify are stepping into this space to a) creative exclusive content and b) use algorithms to promote podcast episodes via Spotify.

I’ve been using Podcast Republic (not sponsored/ affiliated) since Day 1 of listening to podcasts and it’s the only podcast episode manager out there that allows me to keep track of episodes the way I want to.

I’m subscribed to my favourite podcasts and Podcast Republic has a set of features that allow you to auto-download the next episode as soon as you begin listening to one that’s already downloaded.

That means that I get to keep track to which episodes I’ve listened and automatically continue supporting the podcasters I love without batting any eyelash.

Circumventing Youtube Recommendations

Youtube is one of the platforms directly criticized on The Social Dilemma, particularly that their recommendations are designed to get you down “rabbit holes”.

No, not the kind I invite you down at the bottom of my signatures, my manually selected favourites. Youtube rabbit holes are infamous for spinning you into weirder and weirder content, or worse — increasingly extreme content.

Inspired by the suggestions from this documentary, I’ve since installed an extension that disables the Youtube recommendation page and redirects to the subscription page. That way, I can support watching content from my favourite creators at a regular interval, which is the key to survival for some creators who aren’t being boosted by the algorithm.

I simply add the videos I want to watch to the “Watch Later” queue and when I want some quality Youtube time, I pop up on queue and start watching.

From time to time, I’ll specifically search for certain topics I’m interested in (e.g., crocheting, TV) and add new videos and top videos from the search page to my watch later so I can discover Youtubers who make videos about stuff I’m interested in.

Finally Adapting My Reading To This Queue

My biggest beef with the Medium queue is that on desktop, it sorts articles by recently added to queue. This means that I’m consistently adding to it, but if I’ve had a particularly inspiring day where I add many pieces to queue, those earliest pieces I’ve added that day may never be read as I continue to add new pieces and only get to the top few.

The mobile app is only incrementally better, with the option to sort by published date and reading time in addition to recently added to queue. The only added benefit is that sorting by reading time allows me to catch up on shortform and medium pieces with the shortest reading time.

I’ve since explored a few bookmark managers and have landed with raindrop.io. I can sort by ascending AND descending dates so that I can finally clear the queue in an orderly manner.

While it does mean that I can’t hop on articles the moment they’re out, I think this is an added plus. As writers we’ve gotten accustomed to churning out new pieces to stay on top of the algorithm that we forget some of our older pieces are already written and deserve attention to new eyes from time to time too.

This new queueing system allows me to ensure that I support the writers I love regardless of whether I interact with them daily or not, or whether they post frequent enough to top charts.

I add to this queue by directly subscribing to personal newsletters on Medium (so toggle your articles to “email link to subscribers!”), private and public Twitter lists where I include my favourite writers who boost their own articles, adding newest articles from writers who interact with my work.

Take-home message

There are so many ways to shape how you consume content and so many apps out there that help organize it in a way that you want to intentionally consume it.

While algorithms can still sometimes be helpful to introducing us to new media we might love, it should not be the only way we engage with information on the internet.

We deserve to more actively balance our true preferences against a backdrop of hypothesized or imposed preferences provided by the algorithm.

Let me know how you organize what you consume on the internet! Would love suggestions on how to adapt mine!

Hi, I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and one last way I try to counteract the algorithm is to build an archive of my favourite pieces from my favourite writers and boost them along with every article I write. Sure, this list can be just as biased, but we can name these biases as a result of knowing who I am as a writer, reader, and human being. The scary thing about algorithms is that while it’s supposed to be neutral, it’s biased in a black box kind of way that doesn’t indicate what those biases can be.

Hop down the (hand-selected, non-algorithmic) rabbit hole? 🐰🕳

^ by TC Hails