Early solitary mornings are filled with small rituals: descending to a silent kitchen, hydrating, choosing music, setting the coffee, and listening as it brews. In that liminal state, algorithmic feeds intrude through Reddit, YouTube, and news apps, tugging attention toward videos, shows, or work. Smartphone-era rhythms have merged with recommendation systems across podcasts, social apps, and streaming platforms. Algorithms, long-standing mathematical procedures—from Euclid's GCD to modern coordinations—now treat unclaimed time as a solvable problem. Those solutions populate idle moments, produce overstimulation, and can convert reclaimed solitude into hours spent scrolling.
I often wake up before dawn, ahead of my wife and kids, so that I can enjoy a little solitary time. I creep downstairs to the silent kitchen, drink a glass of water, and put in my AirPods. Then I choose some music, set up the coffee maker, and sit and listen while the coffee brews. It's in this liminal state that my encounter with the algorithm begins. Groggily, I'll scroll through some dad content on Reddit, or watch photography videos on YouTube.
It's a strange way to live. Algorithms are old-around 300 B.C., Euclid invented one for finding the greatest common divisor of two integers. They are, essentially, mathematical procedures for solving problems. We use them to coördinate physical things (like elevators) and bureaucratic things (like medical residencies). Did it make sense to treat unclaimed time as a problem? We've solved it algorithmically, and now have none.
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