Outsmart The Algorithm's

For over a decade, platforms have been slowly shifting away from open, towards walled gardens. People are posting less, and AI is taking over, whilst some platforms are crushing api access, forcing the use of their apps and websites.

How can you take back some control and bring some peace and clarity back to your scroll?

RSS

It stands for Really Simple Syndication. The idea took off in the mid-2000s, and is a standard way content can be exchanged online.

A great deal of content management systems, including WordPress, ship out the box with RSS… just add ‘/feed‘ or ’/rss‘ to a WordPress site and watch the feed appear!

RSS is a way to collect information from websites without actually visiting them. It's a feed of posts or updated content; it is also the way that podcast feeds are kept up to date.

Newsletters

This isn't a sneaky ad to promote the newsletter side of this site, but what you won't find here is an algorithm modifying the feed in an attempt to keep you reading longer.

The content posted here is in chronological order, at most sorted by category or interest.

Look for publications that are on a particular niche or topic you are interested in and subscribe to it, the content you like will then find you.

Command Some Respect

Our phones are precious real estate, and every app is fighting for your screen time.

Win the war, not just the battle, by locking down notifications.

Start by becoming very picky about what apps you allow to bug you, start with nothing, then enable apps like phone, sms, bank, maps, clock etc.

Then choose carefully, for me, I allow instant messaging apps, but not notifications from social media apps.

Games, shopping, food delivery, they all have notifcations turned off.

You don't pull me into your app, I choose when I want to visit you.