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Your social media algorithms are the invisible force that determines what content you see, shaping your online experience based on your interactions, likes, and searches. While these algorithms are designed to keep you engaged and on the platform for as long as possible by showing you content that aligns with your interests, they’re not perfect.
Over time, you may find that your feeds become cluttered with posts that no longer capture your attention. If this happens, it may help to reset your social media algorithms to regain some control and ensure that the content actually reflects your current preferences. So, here’s how to reset the algorithms across the most important social media platforms today.
Facebook and Instagram
Your Facebook homepage algorithm is supposed to be determined based on your interactions with friends, pages, and groups. But if your page looks crowded or shows content that doesn’t suit you, you can try the following:
You can control your home page preferences by clicking on your profile picture at the top right, then going to Settings and Privacy, and from there choosing Home Page (Feed).
Here you can control your preferences of people and pages you want to see more of, you can also unfollow people you don't want to see as often but want to keep as friends, or take advantage of the “snooze” option, which allows you to temporarily unfollow for 30 days. This will try to prioritize the content you want to see, making your home page more in line with your current interests.
Another alternative to your home page is to go to Other Pages on the left side of the Facebook app. This option lets you see content only from your favorite people, friends, groups, or pages you follow. This gives you more control over what you see, bypassing the algorithmic control of your home page in favor of personalized lists.
As for Instagram, you can adjust or reset the algorithm, similar to Facebook's, to better suit your interests.
You can change your ad and content preferences by going to your profile, clicking on the three lines at the top right, then the settings menu will appear, then going to Accounts Center and choosing “Ad Preferences” to change what you see on your home page. This will help you improve the content and ads that are shown to you on the home page.
You can also unfollow different accounts by clicking on the three dots on posts to unfollow accounts you no longer like. You can also add accounts to your favorites list to see more content from these accounts.
You can also use the “Not Interested” option for videos that don’t suit you, so that the algorithm stops suggesting similar videos.
TikTok app
TikTok's For You page is a powerful tool for discovering new content on the app, but it can quickly fill up with videos that no longer fit your interests. You can try these steps to reset the algorithm.
You can mark videos that appear to you as “not interested.” For example, when you come across a video that doesn’t interest you, press and hold on the video until a menu appears, from which you can select “not interested.” This is a useful method for gradually steering the algorithm in a new direction. Through experimentation, you will find that consistently marking videos as “not interested” over the course of a week can significantly change the content that TikTok suggests.
You can also edit your video likes by going to your profile, clicking on the icon in the bottom right corner, then clicking on the heart icon to view the videos you liked. And unlike any videos that no longer reflect your current interests by clicking on the heart.
Editing your video like history helps remove old preferences that may affect your For You page recommendations.
The last solution is to refresh your For You feed and start over. You can do this by going to your profile, then choosing Settings and Privacy, then choosing Content Preferences, then clicking Refresh your For You feed and then clicking Continue to reset.
This solution will completely erase all of your For You page recommendations, allowing you to start fresh, and the algorithm will start showing you new videos based on your most recent interactions with them.
YouTube platform
YouTube's video recommendations are tied to your watch history, search history, and subscriptions to different channels on the platform. If you feel that the algorithm's recommendations no longer represent your interests, here's how to reset them:
First – You can reset your watch history, by going to the YouTube app on your smartphone, then clicking on your profile picture, then going to Settings, then Manage All History. You can set automatic deletion of content history older than 3, 18, or 36 months, or you can delete your entire watch history manually.
This will significantly change the content YouTube's algorithm suggests, especially if you choose to delete your entire viewing history.
You can also unsubscribe from channels by going to the Subscriptions tab at the bottom, then clicking on “All” at the top next to the channel names, then clicking on the bell icon next to each channel to show you the option to unsubscribe.
Unsubscribing from channels that are no longer your favorites helps improve algorithmic recommendations, ensuring you receive content from channels that match your current interests.
You can also customize your recommendations by using the “Not Interested” option below videos you don’t care about. This helps the algorithm know what you don’t want to see. Regularly selecting these videos will keep the recommendations on your home page over time.
