The Netflix Brain

The Netflix Brain

The use of algorithms for choosing what the public will consume on social network and streaming companies is well known now. But it wasn't always so. It seemed a mystery to begin with, how the the sites we might like, or the shows we might enjoy, turned up on our feed so effortlessly. Liking someone or something seemed no more than polite behaviour. Little did we know that the beginnings of algorithms were tracking us, making data bases of our every move, informing our choices with the offerings they fed up to us. But we got the hang of it as it all slid into our unconscious mind so that we automatically complied. If I was to say that this is exactly the way our brain works to inform our minds choices, you would probably laugh, thinking it was all too simplistic to be real. But the similarity is all too real.

Our brain has been collating information based on our life experiences since we arrived in the womb, creating neuronets of things that often occurred in our little lives. Not unlike the beginnings of our interaction with Facebook. If we keep clicking on it, we get the same experiences repeating themselves over and over. The brain makes no delineation as to whether those experiences are pleasurable of painful. Hence we keep having people and situations show up in our lives whether we like it or not. No wonder most of us believe we have no choice and feel powerless. It works on the principle of our mind 'recognising' the sorts of people, environments and  behaviours that we have become accustomed to.  For instance, if your partner always chooses the programmes you watch on Netflix, that's what will fill your list of shows, even though you personally may not actually like most of them. In childhood we were in that exact situation with our parents. We got what they dished up, one way or another. We didn't have any choice then, and we don't believe we have any now. We get a rather sad and disappointing view on life believing that that's just the way it is.

Netflix wised up though. It gave us a way to interact with the algorithm they created for us, which is more than our parents were able to do with the neuronets that they put in our brains.  When you watch a show now, you are offered the choice of the thumbs down as well as a thumbs up and a double thumbs up, showing our range of preferences. The dialogue under each icon shows "Not for me", "I liked it" or "I really loved it". Believe it or not we have this option on our own neuronets. To begin with, we are totally oblivious as to what beliefs are running our mind. The thing that tells us which category they each need to be placed in is our emotional reactions. They are the feedback that we each get, depicting our personal reactions to life events. We do not have to keep choosing things that make us sad, angry, or fearful, but our mind hasn't known how to change the algorithms.

When we feel our reactions to an event, we can become aware of whether we liked it or not. Then, if we are patient, we can take the time to remember when in our childhood we first started feeling like that, seeing what caused it. Of course, as a child it will mostly be the other adult people that have been in charge of the upsetting event, but not always. Bringing awareness to that event, is the equivalent of seeing how the algorithm snuck into your feed. It's then, with that awareness, you can either give it the thumbs up, or down. In so doing. just as in Netflix, you begin to change what you choose in your life and what subsequently turns up as a result. Your emotions will feed you contented, uplifted feedback so you will know your on the right track. You are beginning to interacting with the brain algorithms, thus changing the way your mind works. And that, my friends, will, if you are patient, change not only your mind, but your whole life. Give it a try. What can you lose but the things you  don't want.