Warning: your old vacation photos are messing with your feed

Honestly, I keep seeing people post old vacation pictures from like 2015 and then get upset their social feeds are full of travel ads for weeks. Tbh, they don't get that the algorithm doesn't care about the date. It just sees 'beach' and 'mountains' and thinks you're planning a trip right now. I know because I posted a picture from a trip to Chicago last year and my whole feed turned into hotel deals and deep-dish pizza spots for a solid month. It felt like the app was trying to send me back. It matters because it makes you feel watched, like you can't even share a memory without it being used to sell you stuff. Has anyone else found a good way to look at old photos without getting that creepy targeted push?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota4152d ago

Notice how this happens with everything now, like when I talk about a movie near my phone and then see ads for it. I mean, it's not just photos, it's like our whole digital past gets used to guess what we want next. I even looked up a toaster once and got appliance ads for months, it's kinda wild how sticky that data is.

wesleyb201d ago

That toaster story hits home, @dakota415. I once searched for a specific hiking boot and my feed was just boots for weeks, even after I bought them. It feels like the algorithm latches onto one thing and just won't let go, you know? The data isn't just sticky, it's super glue.

nancyn691d ago

Yeah, it's like the algorithm gets stuck on a loop. @wesleyb20, do you ever feel like it's not just about what you searched, but that it starts guessing wrong? Like after the boots, my feed tried to sell me a whole camping setup I never wanted.