Disruptive Technologies: The Algorithms That Drive Today's Connections

By Freepik

Technology Over the Years

A little over thirty years ago the world was a very different place. Hookups to the Internet were relatively scarce per building. People did not have cell phones to connect to online services to do things like email or fax, cell phones were for phone calls, period. The Internet itself was vastly different as well. Websites acted more like phone book pages in comparison to the face of a business. In the '90s, social media platforms were more like enhanced bulletin boards rather than the multimedia content sharing platforms we've come to know them as. File sharing and image posting came along towards to end of the '90s, but online conversation was generally limited to text. People still met face to face often, technology was to the consumer, gadgets instead of a way of life at this point. 

Now in 2025, technology has become nigh ubiquitous. The Internet of Things (IoT, smart devices connected to the Internet) has taken off. Nearly everyone has a multi purpose computer in their pocket, some have smart watches. My family has two smart cars. My friends have a fridge with a touchscreen computer. We have lights in bedrooms that we can control with apps on the other side of the world. Let alone smart phones and devices, the Internet itself has evolved. Websites can now be the entire marketplace of eCommerce. Software functionality (also computer infrastructure, development platforms, desktops, networks, etc. See cloud computing post for more information), can be delivered remotely from vast datacenters. 

What Are Disruptive Technologies?

 The evolution of technology has occurred quickly, fast enough that people from before remember a different way of life. I personally grew up in the age of smart phones, social media, and the Internet. For people like me, our current level of technology and the ensuing social connection standards are normal, regardless of whether they are optimal or not. Rasam Dabbas gave a Ted Talk in 2022 called "Disruptive Technologies". In this talk, Dabbas spoke of his own experiences with technology, how he saw life before, during, and after the change from phones, to smart phones, to social media platform giants dominating the world's attention. He pointed out to his audience, young and old, how different socializing is now thanks to technologies like social media and the Internet. People connect with each other from remote locations; meetings take place with distance barriers between the communicators, regardless of how "connected" technology makes people. Everyone is on a screen, practically all the time because of how much infrastructure and office work has migrated online. These incredibly deep changes in people's day to day lives make these technologies disruptive technologies. Dabbas puts the Internet and social media in this category (Rasem Dabbas, 2022). 

Disruptive technologies do show society's technological progress. To reach the point where technology completely overturns our current way of life means that technology can contribute just as much. Software separated itself from the hardware in a bid for multi-platform software development. Today, cloud computing (computing that happens remotely over the Internet), takes full advantage. Yes, this completely changed how office work is done, but it also enabled people to technically have more freedom from that office. Social media may have railroaded steady and physical connection, but in return it lets people communicate with billions. 

Dabbas points out those real concerns regarding the remote evolution of the Internet and social media, but another big ethical concern of his was privacy. Big data companies, especially ones like Google, the controllers of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X (used to be Twitter), etectera, have massive data mining operations that harvest user data and use it to make business decisions, including ranking algorithm choices.

The Algorithm Problem

An important Internet technology that most everyone who uses the Internet encounters regularly are algorithms. For our purposes, an algorithm is a computer program that can accomplish pretty much anything it can be programmed to do. There are two big technologies of the Internet that use them: search engines, and social media. Search engines are software programs that take user search queries and find relevant web pages in response. Some of the most common search engines today are Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The algorithms in question today are the ranking algorithms employed by both of these technologies. They take results, say from a Google search query like "the best grocery store", and rank them. The problem comes in when deciding what to show users in the top sections. Realistically speaking, few people are going to look farther than the first page of results. Whatever appears in the top ten is typically what users think the answer is. So when ranking algorithms decide to show users what they a) think they want to see and b) what the search engine knows will benefit them money wise, problems happen. Search engine ranking algorithms are often biased intentionally by harvested user data. These algorithms want users to be directed to sites that pay them for the visitors. To ads the search engine is paid for. User data is used to make predictions and to guide desired user behavior. Social media recommendation algorithms are worse in a way. As you might know, when you go on your dashboard/micro blog/home page in a social media site, you are typically given recommendations. Those recommendation are served up by an algorithm that directs users to content that it predicts will maximize user engagement and interaction. The content that does best on both counts is usually controversial and radical however, two types of content that tend to generate massive amounts of misinformation. The algorithms will not direct users away from that kind of content, by towards it. 

The algorithms discussed here are the programs that determine what over two billion members of the social media community see, read, hear, and often, believe. And they're terribly flawed. Dabbas certainly has valid concerns surrounding these division forming programs that effectively control public opinion.

Podcasting

Side tangent here. Podcasting is another form of entertainment and multimedia content that exists on social media platforms. Think radio but on dedicated streaming platforms. A podcast is an audio or video narration/speech with narrators, sound effects, or music. Listeners can stream them from a podcasting platform like Spotify or YouTube while driving in the car, doing yard work, anything since they do not always have a video component. I made a podcast episode on search/ranking algorithms. Click here to listen: The Internet of You and Me: The Downsides of Social Media and Search Algorithms. Here is the full Script if you want to read or follow along. Links to additional sources are included there. I used the free Audacity recording/audio editing software to capture the recordings. I added in a royalty/copyright free background music from Pixabay to complement the podcast episode. My experience with podcasting and audio recordings is pretty mixed. The software was good, and the background noise removal features were great for my needs. I had a heck of a time actually writing up my podcast script though. Writing for speech instead of reading are tow very different things. Keeping my voice loud, clear, and engaging was difficult as well. Podcasting is much more than simple audio recording after all.

Conclusion

Search and ranking algorithms are the driving forces behind the public's consumption of entertainment and information. Whatever controls the content shown to users controls public opinion at this point, and that control goes to algorithms, and the people behind them. As members of that public, we need to take a step back and look around, see how much of your daily information is gotten from these big data companies. How much trust do you actually want to give them? How much stock will you put in algorithms whose intentions are not to give you genuine information?

References

 

Rasem Dabbas. (2022, February 4). Disruptive Technologies | Rasem Dabbas | TEDxYouth@CES. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jmI4pyQprM