The World Created by Algorithms, Is It Fine as It Is?

“If I search for a specific product just once, my entire feed gets plastered with it. It makes me confused whether this is a purchase I genuinely want.”

Student A, who attends the Gangneung Campus, opened up about recently feeling severe fatigue from algorithmic recommendation services. Student B also shared, “Only opinions I agree with constantly appear on my social media feed, making me feel as though my perspective on the world is becoming limited.”

As such, the side effects of algorithms—driven by convenience—are penetrating both the daily lives and the thinking of young people simultaneously. As customized services that analyze users' digital footprints to provide optimal information become deeply embedded in daily life, young people have begun to tangibly experience the bias and limitations lurking behind that convenience.

The core driving force behind algorithms lies in thorough data tracking and learning. This method implements personalized services tailored to individual tastes by precisely collecting user metrics such as viewing time, number of clicks, and search history spent on social media or YouTube. Its most prominent feature is repeatedly exposing to users only the content that they are likely to enjoy out of a vast amount of internet information.

The problem is that behind this technological convenience lies a serious concern: it could restrict users' thinking. Because similar information and preferences are repeatedly presented, a kind of 'Echo Chamber' phenomenon occurs where users become trapped only within their existing beliefs. Consequently, algorithms gradually narrow the scope of users' thinking and choices, giving rise to the problem of implicitly limiting their freedom to judge and decide for themselves.

In particular, the group most easily exposed to the influence of these algorithms is those members of the younger generation, who frequently use social media and YouTube. Today, for young people, algorithms operate beyond mere entertainment as a medium that shapes their spending habits and perspectives on society. The issue is that this medium repeatedly shows only the things that users are likely to like. Ultimately, drunk on the convenience within their internet screens, young people's ability to think for themselves is being dulled, and their vision of the world is narrowing.

In the end, what matters is maintaining a balanced perspective and an independent attitude, rather than being unilaterally swayed by the feeds laid out by algorithms. To achieve this, efforts are required from young people to intentionally search for and read information from opposing viewpoints, or to periodically reset their search history to prevent a one-sided accumulation of data. Algorithms only predict our tastes and should not determine our thoughts; therefore, true freedom can only be guaranteed when we make independent choices to look beyond the feeds.

Kwon DongWook 

<kdw070209@naver.com>