Apart from RSS feeds and newsletters like this one, most of what we see and read online are influenced by algorithms working around the clock to milk our attention.

When algorithms work for us, they're magical. You might stumble upon a movie, book or post that piques your curiosity and is just the thing you'd enjoy.

But often, these algorithms simply push us down a rabbit hole of infinite content that is good at sucking our attention but might not be useful or relatable.

They result in what many call “doomscrolling”.

While most algorithms are black boxes that you can't directly influence to tune to your taste, you have some control over many of the popular ones.

Here are some tips on influencing your personal feed on five of the world's popular online services:

1. YouTube: Prune your subscriptions to only include the channels you absolutely love. Mark videos on your feed as "Not interested" if they're not what you'd like to watch. You can also remove videos you didn't enjoy from your history to influence further suggestions. Read the official guide from Google here.
2. Spotify: While Spotify does most of its tuning based on your listening activity, you can influence recommendations by downvoting a recommended song or excluding a playlist from your profile. Read the official guide here.
3. Apple Music: Apple Music's recommendation parameters are not publicised much, but people have reported seeing better recommendations by favouriting a track or using the "Suggest Less" option on a song. Loving an entire playlist — own or Apple-curated — seems to have more impact. Read an unofficial guide here.
4. Amazon: You have more direct feedback for your Amazon product recommendations. Visit the Improve Your Recommendations page while signed in to exclude some purchased items from your recommendations pool. You can also exclude all items you've gifted from your personal feed.
5. Netflix: There's not much to do here other than watch movies and shows and cast your vote, but if you're in the mood to go full manual for a while, you can browse hidden Netflix genres and subgenres here.

We can't escape algorithms when we consume media on the internet, but I hope these tips will help you turn the game to your advantage.

Let me know if you have any more tips by replying to this email.

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