Abstract
This paper discusses the impact of algorithms on young people’s digital memory practices i.e. how memories are collected, shared and maintained. It takes the experiences of young people on Instagram to exemplify how young people’s imaginaries of algorithms influence their choices of what to post and how. The paper further argues that the imaginary of algorithms is framing algorithms as actors who hinder young people’s uses of Instagram and lead to the development of strategies to circumvent these gatekeepers. Using findings from ethnographic research into young people’s memory practice it is demonstrated that the co-dependent relationship between algorithms and youth should gain a more prominent role in the study of digital memory making. Furthermore, the potential ramifications of commercial algorithmic feed recommendations on personal memory practices and collective remembering are being critically examined.
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Notes
- 1.
Translated from German: “[…] früher war es halt ganz klar nach Likes ausgerichtet. Nach Bestätigung, nach Kommentaren und ähm, ja ich bin sehr sehr froh, dass ich davon weggekommen bin. Weil es doch sehr toxisch ist. Weil an irgend’nem Punkt, Instagram hat ja auch dazu gelernt und der Algorithmus hat dazugelernt irgendwann…ja ja und irgendwann ist dein Bild ähm, du hattest, du warst voll daran gewohnt, dass deine Bilder immer mehr Likes bekommen und plötzlich bist du von dreitausend Likes runter auf eintausend. Dann hinterfragst du alles. Du nimmst das…oder ich hab das sofort persönlich genommen und hab gedacht ‘Oh Gott, was ist mit diesem Bild los?’. Und ich hab’s sofort runtergenommen anstatt zu hinterfragen vielleicht liegt es am Algorithmus, vielleicht haben jetzt gerade meine Bilder einfach nicht so viele Leute erreicht wie zuvor. Nee, ich hab es sofort persönlich genommen”.
- 2.
Translated from German: “Und ich hab wirklich so, so mit System, die Algorithmen für mich genknackt”.
- 3.
See for example Hamilton, Ruth (2019): How to hack the Instagram algorithm. Accessed on 19/12/2020: https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/how-to-hack-the-instagram-algorithm.
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Acknowledgements
This work is part of the POEM (Participatory Memory Practices) project and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 764859. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Gertraud Koch, Quoc-Tan Tran, Angeliki Tzouganatou and Cassandra Kist for their feedback on the initial drafts and insightful discussions that have influenced this work.
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Krueckeberg, J. (2021). Youth and Algorithmic Memory: Co-producing Personal Memory on Instagram. In: Rauterberg, M. (eds) Culture and Computing. Design Thinking and Cultural Computing. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12795. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77431-8_16
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