Ultimately, my sense of self was beholden to the responses I got from my invisible audiences, whose attention was algorithmically mediated, too. I wasn’t sure who I would be without algorithmic recommendations; I don’t know that anyone else who has spent years of their life on digital platforms can be totally sure. A fear took hold: In passively consuming what I was interested in, had I given up my agency to figure out what was truly meaningful to me?
