Father John Jimenez is a San Francisco priest, chaplain, and teacher. Alongside instructing high school students in mathematics, he often contributes to the San Francisco Chronicle. In his articles, Father John Jimenez has talked about the “expanding bubble of desire” that is fueled by social media, and the development and use of algorithms that reward pleasure-seeking behavior.
Algorithms are digital programs that independently tackle problems with mathematical logic; one could be programmed to sort a million social media posts by topic, for example. They are considered tools that have the potential to solve a variety of problems. Engineers wonder if algorithms could be used to block harmful content in social media, predict the future, and prevent disasters. However, algorithms already play a massive role in our lives and provide direction to human behaviors, for better or worse. Platforms like TikTok have fully embraced the use of algorithms, using them to foster an addictive model that provides an endless stream of content for users to consume.
Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are increasingly under pressure to admit the ways that their products are addictive and unhealthy for users, and that they have purposely been designed that way to maximize profits. By playing into their user’s desire for more content, they create an environment that acts as a positive feedback loop: the more time a user spends online, the better the algorithm gets at providing engaging content to that user. Rather than a solution to a problem, the algorithm has itself become a problem that persists, even without human intervention. Once activated, such algorithms continually modify in a feedback loop fashion, thus expanding the bubble of desire, without a moral conscience, a force that often times ends up displacing people, or cancelling them, or censoring information, in the end, taking away our freedom. To say it simply, Liberty without Morality becomes Oppressively Libertine
