S1E04: Algorithms vs Your Soul: How You're Being Formed by the Feed

This episode goes into the engine room. Jack argues that the feed is not merely information; it is formation. Through attention capture, identity shaping, and moral outsourcing, algorithms train what you notice, what you fear, what you mock, what you love, and who you think you are. The algorithm does not need to understand you. It only needs to predict you. But prediction is power, and power needs boundaries. Instead of deleting your phone and moving to a decorative cabin, Jack offers practical counter-moves: add friction, choose your formation diet, and re-embody your life. The goal is simple: treat the feed like a tool, not a tutor.

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Transcript

Intro 0:07

This is Between Worlds, your beacon of sanity in a weekly reality check. To help you navigate a noisy, tribal, algorithmic age. No yelling, no recruiting, just clarity with teeth. Your host is Jack Sorrin, Chief Reality Officer, Doctor of Cultural Whiplash, Professor of Practical Sanity. Here for people who refuse to become someone else's social experiment. If you don't fit the approved boxes, congratulations, you're home. And now, here's Jack.

Host 0:42

All right, welcome back to Between Worlds. I'm Jack Sorrin, and today's episode is called Algorithms versus Your Soul. How you're being formed. Now, that title sounds dramatic. Algorithms vs. Your Soul. Like we're about to stage a cage match between TikTok and real humanity. Relax. No one's throwing a chair. But I am going to say something that sounds dramatic because it is. You are being formed. Right now, every day. And if you don't choose what forms you, the feed will. If you've ever opened your phone to check one thing and then looked up 20 minutes later with a different mood, a different attention span, and a suspicious urge to buy something that you didn't know existed, you're in the right place. Now before we go any further, let me make something explicit because this matters for the season. Today is not use your phone less. Episode seven is going to be the drill, the full attention audit. But today is who is forming you, how they're doing it, and why you feel the way you feel. This is the engine room. This is not a life hack. So here's my promise. By the end of this episode, you'll have two things. You're going to have a map, three mechanisms that shape your inner life, your attention, your identity, and your conscience. And you're going to have a move, three counter moves that you can start this week to take your mind back without becoming weird about it. No yelling, no recruiting, no delete your phone and go live in the woods, just clarity with teeth. Well, first, let me give you a quick recap because we're building a season here, not a random pile of monologues. If episode one was the environment, why you're not crazy, why the contemporary world runs at machine tempo. And if episode two was identity, why you don't fit the approved boxes? If episode three was truth, how to live inside fog without becoming naive or paranoid, episode four is formation, how the machine shapes you from the inside out. Now, let me open with a story, and yes, it involves me being an idiot, which happens more than I'd like to admit. Because apparently I'm committed to credibility through humiliation. A few weeks ago, I go onto YouTube to look up something innocent, something normal. I think it was how to fix a squeaky door, because I'm at that stage of life where a squeaky hinge is not a minor inconvenience. It's a personal attack. That's why I click a video. It's fine. 30 seconds in, the guy says, Now, before we fix the hinge, you need to know something. And I'm thinking, no, I don't. I need to know how to make the squeak stop. But then I do what human beings do. I keep watching. Because curiosity is not a sin, it's just exploitable. And suddenly, I'm not watching a guy fix a hinge anymore. Now I'm watching five signs your home is secretly trying to kill you. And then ten mistakes the average homeowner makes. And then why everything is built to fail, and then how the system profits from your ignorance. And I'm sitting there thinking, I came here for a hinge, and now I'm in an apocalypse documentary. And here's the part that matters. I didn't feel like I was being manipulated. I felt like I was learning. I felt like I was getting the real story. I felt special. I felt like I had discovered a hidden corridor behind the bookshelf. Then I look at the clock and realize that I've been watching for 40 minutes. I haven't fixed the door. I have, however, developed a low-grade suspicion towards hinges. And that's when it hit me. The algorithm didn't just show me information, it shaped my mood, it trained my attention, it nudged my identity, it handed me a storyline about reality. And if you think I'm exaggerating, try this. Open any feed, click one thing because you're curious, and then watch what happens. The algorithm does not say, oh, you're a complex person. Here's a balanced diet. No, it says, aha, I have detected a pattern. And then it starts feeding you more of whatever keeps you watching. Not whatever makes you wise. And here's what you need to know about detected a pattern. The algorithm isn't just watching what you click, it's watching what you pause on, it's watching what you re-watch, it's watching what you hover over like I shouldn't, but I want to. Every pause is a vote, every rewatch is a vote, every angry comment is a vote. And the system says, Oh good, I know what this person is. And that's why the algorithm is so good at this. It doesn't need to understand you, it just needs to predict you. And prediction is power. Now let me give you a micro confession because this is the part where I stop sounding like a smart stranger and start sounding like a human being. There are nights when I catch myself scrolling and I hate who I become in ten minutes. Not I had a different opinion, I mean smaller, hotter, more cynical, less patient, less present. And that's when I realized this isn't primarily a politics problem. This is a formation problem. Okay, let me state the problem. What you feel sounds like this. I can't focus. I can't read. I can't be bored anymore. My brain feels like it has 12 taps open. I'm more reactive than I used to be. I feel anxious and I can't even explain why. I keep checking my phone like it's going to tell me who to be today. And the hidden cost is worse than annoyance. Because when your attention gets fragmented, your life gets fragmented. When your identity gets captured, your freedom shrinks. And when your conscience gets outsourced, you lose the ability to think and act like a whole human being. Now, let me define soul because I can already hear some of you going, Jack, I'm not religious. Fine. When I say soul, I'm not trying to catechize you. Call it your inner life. Call it your humanity, your center, that part of you that loves things, fears things, chooses things, becomes things. Your soul is that part of you that gets shaped into a certain kind of person. And algorithms are in the shaping business. And so here's the shift that you have to make, and it's a big one. Stop thinking of the feed as information. Start thinking of it as formation. Because you don't just watch content, you rehearse emotions, you practice reflexes, you absorb a way of seeing, you get trained. And the training works even when you disagree. You can hate what you're watching and still be shaped by it. That's one of the six little miracles of the attention economy. Okay, so here's the map. Three mechanisms. These are not vibes, these are mechanisms that help us understand what's going on. Mechanism number one, attention capture. Attention is your life. What you look at, you become, and the algorithm knows this. So it's built around one goal. Keep you watching, keep you scrolling, keep you clicking, keep you reacting, keep you engaged. How? Not with magic, with engineering, infinite scroll, autoplay, notifications. And if your phone is the first thing you touch in the morning, you already know the point. You're training your brain to start the day with someone else's agenda. And when your attention is always being interrupted, two things happen. One, you lose depth. Two, you lose peace. You become a person who can handle stimulus but struggles with silence. Mechanism number two, identity shaping. This is the part that people miss. You think the algorithm is showing you what you like, but very often it's teaching you what to like because identity is sticky. Identity keeps you coming back. If the algorithm can move you from I watched a clip to this is who I am, it owns you. And so it feeds you belonging and it feeds you enemies. It gives you content that flatters your tribe and humiliates the other tribe. Content that makes you feel informed and righteous at the same time, which is basically the narcotic of our age. And if you stay in that long enough, you don't just have opinions, you have reflexes. You don't just believe things, you perform things. You start talking in slogans, you start hearing nuance as betrayal. And that's why the algorithm hates one thing above all complexity. Complexity is slow. Nuance doesn't go viral. A careful sentence doesn't get shared. A rage clip does. And this is where it gets darker. The algorithm doesn't have a political ideology, it has a mathematical ideology. More reaction, more watch time, more shares, more comments. So it will quietly nudge you toward whatever makes you more intense because intense people are loyal. Intense people are predictable. Intense people don't leave. You start at that's interesting, and you end at that's everything. And that's how a normal person becomes a full-time commentator on a topic that they've never actually lived. Here's mechanism number three: moral outsourcing. Now, this is a sneaky one because you don't feel like you're outsourcing your moral judgment. You feel like you're staying informed. But notice what happens. You open your phone and within minutes, you know what you're supposed to be outraged about today. You know who the villain of the week is, you know which words are approved and which words are forbidden. You know what your tribe is celebrating, what it's condemning, and what it's pretending not to see. And if you don't keep up, you feel behind. Like you missed the meeting, like you stepped out of the loop. That is moral outsourcing. You're letting the feed tell you what matters. And when the feed tells you what matters, the feed is shaping what you love. Let me make this painfully practical. Your conscience used to be shaped by real people, real duties, real suffering, real responsibility. Now it gets shaped by trending, by what's going around, by what will get you applause from strangers, what will protect you from being publicly punished. Which means you can start confusing moral performance with moral action. You can start thinking you did something because you posted something. You can feel righteous without ever lifting a finger for a real human being. And that is not maturity. That is moral outsourcing with a dopamine reward. Now, let me make an observation. The algorithm is not just a technology, it's a catechism. Not in a churchy way, in a training your instincts way. It teaches you what to desire, what to fear, what to hate, what to mock, what to ignore. Now, let me give you a quick reality check. Not another framework, just a couple of snapshots so that you don't think I'm being dramatic. Isn't that weird that every platform greets you like it's doing you a favor? For you. Recommended for you. Because you watched one thing you might like this. And it's like, first of all, I did not ask. Second of all, for me is starting to feel like a threat. And also, have you ever noticed that the algorithm doesn't just feed you content, it feeds you emotion. It doesn't just say here's information, it says here's anger, here's fear, here's envy, here's a quick hit of superiority. And then, my favorite, platforms will show you two people screaming at each other and call it community. And if you've ever watched one video about fitness, and then your entire feed becomes a relentless slideshow of perfect bodies and self-loathing, you've experienced the spiritual gift of algorithmic encouragement. So that's the reality check. Now, I want to give this a frame. We're going to look at this psychologically, culturally, and philosophically. First, psychologically, your brain runs on attention and reward, and it's vulnerable to variable rewards, the slot machine effect. You don't scroll because the next thing will be good. You scroll because the next thing might be good, and might is addictive. Add to that outrage and fear are high salience emotions. Your brain treats them like signals of importance. And so if a platform can keep you angry or afraid, it can keep you engaged. Fear makes you predictable. Anger makes you easy to steer. And if you're tired, sleep-deprived, overstimulated, your brain doesn't become wiser, it becomes faster and stupider. You don't become a philosopher, you become a mammal. So here's the second part of the frame: a cultural perspective. The algorithm is an incentive machine. It's not moral, it's not immoral, it's amoral. It lacks a moral foundation. It is math in the service of a business model. If the platform makes money when you stay, then the platform will learn what keeps you staying. It will learn what makes you stop scrolling, and it will feed you more of that. And let me say the cliche in a non-cliche way. If you're not paying for the product, you're not the customer, you're the inventory. That's not a conspiracy. That's economics. And it's why you can't just say, well, I'll use it responsibly, the way that you can say, I'll responsibly eat one potato chip or one crisp for those of you on the other side of the pond. By the way, sorry, let me interrupt myself here because I can hear the objection. Jack, aren't you blaming technology for human weakness? No, I'm saying the system is designed to exploit human weakness. Those are different claims. Humans have always been distractable. Humans have always been manipulatable. We just didn't always carry a casino in our pocket. Okay, back on track. The third part of the frame is a philosophical perspective. And it's simply this formation is inevitable. You are becoming something every day. You are being shaped by whatever you repeatedly give your attention to. You're being shaped by whatever stories you inhabit. You're being shaped by whatever community you perform for. And if you don't choose your formation, you will receive one by default. And default formation in 2026 is restless, reactive, tribal, and tired. Okay. I want you to listen to this very carefully. Algorithms don't just show you the world, they train your loves. So if you want to keep your soul, if you want to keep your inner life, you need to put the machine back in its place. Tool, not tutor. And here is a hope perspective because I know some of you need this. You are not powerless. You can't stop the existence of algorithms, but you can stop them from shaping you by default. And let me future cast this. Because the moment you hear discipline, you picture a miserable life. No. In a week, you'll notice it. You can read again, you can sit still again, you'll be less recruitable, you'll be more present, you'll feel like you own your mind. Now that kind of calm becomes leadership. Because in a hot world, a cool person stands out like water in a desert. So let me give you the move three counter moves. Small, doable, non-weird. Number one, add friction. Right now the algorithm has the home court advantage because it's frictionless. Infinite scroll is effortless. Autoplay is effortless. Notifications are effortless, and your best intentions are adorable. So you add friction, you turn off autoplay, you turn off notifications for anything that isn't a real human being. Take the most addictive app off your home screen. Log out so you have to log in. Set a timer. Use the browser instead of the app. Make the feed a place you visit, not a place you live. Make it small. Pick one friction move today. Just one. Autoplay off or notifications off or move the app. You don't need a revolution, you need a wedge. Okay, here's the second move. Choose your formation diet. If you eat junk food all day, you feel like junk. If you drink outrage all day, you become outrage. If you snack on chaos, don't be surprised when you feel chaotic. So choose three inputs that will make you better. One long-form thing that forces context. One voice that is calm and honest, even if you don't agree with them. And one source that helps you build real skills or real wisdom, something you can use. And yes, you may have to unfollow some people. Not because they're evil, because they're forming you into something you don't want to be. Make it small. Replace 10 minutes of algorithm scrolling with 10 minutes of chosen input. Not forever, just this week. This is training. Okay, here's move number three reembody your life. Because the algorithm wins when your life becomes mostly mental. Mostly reactive, mostly online. So you do something embarrassingly simple. Touch the real. Go outside. Lift something heavy. Cook something. Have a conversation with a real person where no one is performing for an audience. Sit in silence long enough to remember that you have an inner life. Make it small. One walk without your phone. Ten minutes. If you can't do ten, then do five. If you can't do five, then congratulations. You've just discovered the problem. Okay. Now we make this a seven-day experiment because agreement is not transformation. Now this week's practice is called the Algorithm Fast. And don't panic. This is not an invitation to become an Augustinian monk. This is a sanity thing. Let me say it plainly. This is a starter wedge, not the full attention audit. Later this season, we'll do a deep dive, but this week is the first reclaim. For the next seven days, you're going to do four simple things. One, no screens until you've touched the real. That's our baseline. Five minutes. Coffee, window, breathe, reality. Two. Choose one app that runs on a for you style feed and remove the feed. Not remove the app, just remove the feed. That means you can use it through search, through subscriptions, through following, purposeful use, but for seven days, no infinite scroll. No just to see what's there. No casino. Number three, no sharing when you're hot. If something makes you angry or afraid or smug, you wait. 24 hours. If it's true and important, it'll still be true tomorrow. If it's not, you just saved your soul from being used as a megaphone. And number four, one check-in question at the end of the day. Ask yourself, what did I let form me today? Not in a guilty way, in a grown-up way. Do that for seven days. And here's what I expect. Your nervous system calms down, your attention span starts to come back. You feel less recruitable, less reactive, more present, more you. Now, I want to land this with one summary sentence. Algorithms don't just show you content, they shape your attention, your identity, and your conscience. So sanity requires you to treat the feed like a tool, not a tutor. Now, let me give you one question to ponder. Who are you becoming because of what you consume? Not what you intend, but what you actually consume. So if this episode helped you, subscribe and send it to the friend who keeps saying, I don't know why I feel so off, while they're doom scrolling like it's their job. Now, in the next episode, we're looking at politics for people who hate politics. And I'm going to give you three rules for staying human when everything is engineered to make you hate your neighbor, including how to care without becoming a monster, and how to disagree without becoming stupid. So until next time, no screens until you've touched the reel. Stay sane, stay human, and I'll catch you in the next one.

Outro 26:06

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