By Annette Pinder 

I recently saw the movie The Social Reckoning, and it left me thinking about something I hadn’t considered part of healthy living: the information we consume and the emotions we choose to amplify. 

The film explores troubling revelations about Facebook and the consequences of social media systems designed to maximize engagement. Anger, fear, outrage, and divisiveness are powerful attention-grabbers. The longer we remain engaged, the more profitable we become to the platforms competing for our attention. 

The consequences can extend far beyond our screens. Social media played a significant role in spreading misinformation and inflammatory content surrounding the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But the film prompted me to consider another question: If technology can influence us, can we become more intentional about how we influence technology—and one another? 

I believe we can. 

Every time we click, comment, share, watch, or linger over something online, we provide information about what captures our attention. Constantly engaging with material that makes us furious can encourage platforms to show us more of it. Conversely, deliberately seeking credible, constructive, educational, and uplifting content can help reshape our online experience. 

This doesn’t mean ignoring suffering or surrounding ourselves only with happy news. Terrible things happen, and being informed is part of being a responsible citizen. But there is a difference between understanding a problem and repeatedly consuming content that intensifies anger without helping us do anything about it. 

That distinction matters for our health, too. Chronic stress and anger can affect sleep, mood, relationships, and physical well-being. They also affect how we treat others. The film also emphasizes the intensification of online bullying and its profound and sometimes devastating effect on teenagers. Perhaps healthy living should include examining our “information diet” and how we promote, share, and respond to what we encounter online, just as we consider what we eat, how much we exercise, and whether we get enough sleep. 

Artificial intelligence adds another dimension. AI can help us learn, solve problems, explore ideas, and see perspectives we hadn’t considered. But it also places responsibility on us. What questions do we ask? Are we looking only for confirmation of what we already believe, or are we willing to challenge our assumptions? Do we use technology to become more informed and compassionate—or simply more certain that we are right? 

Technology doesn’t eliminate personal accountability. In some ways, it makes accountability more important. Our choices also affect other people. Anger can spread and harm us and others. So can fear and misinformation. But curiosity, kindness, thoughtful disagreement, reliable information, and solutions can spread, too. 

We may not be able to change a social media company’s business model or solve the world’s problems on our own. But we can decide what deserves our attention and what we amplify.  

Perhaps one of the healthiest choices we can make is surprisingly simple: Before clicking, sharing, responding, or asking AI to reinforce what we already think, pause and ask, “Is this helping me—and is what I’m putting into the world helping anyone else?” Changing our personal algorithm might just be another way of changing ourselves.