being in tech

A New Year’s resolution: drastically reduce the amount of crap I put in my brain.

With the amount of AI slop circulating online, it’s so easy to get sucked into the feed of various social media posts. As a consumer of content, it’s incredibly annoying to be amazed at some story only to realize it was probably the work of AI generation. There are varying degrees of slop—some are obvious and I quickly scroll past them. Many years of exposure to ads in the feed have trained me well. Now it’s no longer just sponsored posts we’re fervently scrolling past; it’s also this garbage content. Makes you wonder whether people are even still in the network anymore.
Facebook maintains such a stronghold because of all the communities built on it, but it’s really filled with so much junk that you can’t see the authentic stuff anymore. I recently found myself scrolling through endless AI slop again because of our alumni homecoming event. I wanted to see posts from my connections, but I had to scroll through all the garbage to find the ones I actually wanted to like and comment on. Such a waste of time.

The Human-Only Network Fantasy

What if we created a social network that was humans only, with authentic users? How would you even ensure that? Maybe it’s a reputation-based system—some sort of mesh networking approach where you would only ever be connected to or see content from people in your human network. The goal would be that you could always trace back which of your connections, and their connections, brought you the content. That way you could gauge the reliability of your network.
It seems like it’s just going to be messy though.

The Creator’s Dilemma

From a creator’s perspective, AI has certainly democratized content creation. Anyone can create whatever content they want—imagination is the limit. I’ve read perspectives about how traditional creators can’t compete, which is interesting because they do have access to the same tools; they just choose not to use them. And that’s fine—it’s a choice to make. Surely if they have good content, people would still subscribe.
AI Agents Curating Our Feeds?
I remember listening to one of the futurists talking about how we will eventually live in a world where our agents scroll through the feed and alert us when there’s actual meaningful content posted. But then, it kind of defeats the purpose of having this feed. It feels very counterintuitive.
A future where AI agents sift through the contents of our social media feeds—would people continue posting on their social feeds then? The problem right now is that there are only a few players controlling where content sits. People don’t own their content, which is why they’re at the mercy of those dealing out content to others.
If an AI is filtering out junk content, how would the platforms evolve? Would the format remain the same? Would people still be publishing junk on the feed? It feels like the content, media, and format might all change.
I think about my own consumption patterns. I have a few use cases for consuming content and go to different platforms for each type. Sometimes the lines get blurred, and that’s what makes it cumbersome. I can get tech content from TikTok and Instagram in the form of videos, for example, so I have to jump across all these different platforms.
I’m trying to imagine what an AI-curated consumption mechanism would look like.

Why We Scroll

But I guess it also goes back to why people go to the feed in the first place.
Some people probably want to be in the feed to drown out the rest of the troubles in life– just bury ourselves in a mindless mode of consumption, thinking maybe we’ll learn something today just by the flick of a thumb. I would like to see a year-in-review of how many thumb flicks I’ve done on my mobile phone. Maybe that would serve as a wake-up call as to how much time I’m spending on the phone.

Looking Forward

I don’t feel like I’m making the best of myself. Maybe AI has disrupted things, but I do look forward to what 2026 will bring. I’m hoping to have reduced my unnecessary “brain rot” consumption. I’m hoping to have learned a new skill or built something new, digital or physical. Maybe I’d like to have taught someone something. That, I think, is a good goal to have.