# I’m helping my algorithms get over my break-up By [njadew.eth](https://paragraph.com/@njadew) · 2022-04-28 --- My algorithms are going through a break up and they’re taking longer than I am to move on. My Spotify Discover Weekly has been tainted with his music taste, a result of many nights exploring each other through music. My Release Radar is a lost cause, it is now solely focused on him like a jilted lover. My Instagram recommendations center on people he knows despite us no longer maintaining any social connection. Even my Google Maps continues to highlight the places we frequented despite my now total avoidance. Break-ups are horrendous, whether the breaker or breakee there is a period of time where the sensation of losing that other person weighs on you. For me it was like being cast from a world so suddenly that real life felt foreign. A relationship during Covid moves fast, you burrow into each other’s existence without the disruption of the outside world. We’d built an entire shared existence in almost isolation so when one half of this empire decided to break up the kingdom it was a shock. I spun, hit emotional rock bottom a few times and discovered new depths in desperation. I also bounced back. However, my algorithms haven’t come along for the ride. I’m not sure they’ve even noticed how much my life has changed. They seem stubbornly nostalgic. I do not want to forget my relationship, I just want to leave it where it is — in the past. That was easy once, you could close that memory portal in your mind, remove physical reminders and focus on the present. Today our memories extend beyond our own mind to our data legacy, and that has proven harder to manage. I’ve taken to investing serious time in helping my algorithms move on. I’m trying to flush out their memory paths, reminding them what I do and don’t like. Revisiting old times so they can recall who I was before I met him. It is an unreal experience. There is no way to accelerate this without impacting my own data-driven experience which I appreciate and implore in today’s tech-centric lifestyle. Each weekend I sit with Spotify and take distinct actions to signal what is mine and what is his. I’m Marie Kondoing my apps! I scoured my Instagram to rid my follower list of any remnants of his world to make the incessant suggestions stop. I’ve moved on, I feel better but this is painful AF. It hurts to have these sensory reminders of a time I loved and lost, the visceral memories send my stomach plummeting. My algorithms are suffering through a lengthy recovery period and I’m scared they’re going to drag me back. There is no easy solution, this is a growing problem as technology becomes the central way we interface with the world. How can we create empathy in something that is binary, how can we signal when we need to make an urgent change to the construct of our world to survive a painful experience. At the time of writing the only way to do it is a hard reset and why should I be burdened with rebuilding myself and my significant tech-others at the same time? One is hard enough, let alone the many-me’s that live in my apps and devices. Our data shadow is growing and I can’t help but think it is creating a more distinct box, the past increasingly impacting our quest for new or different or diverse. We’re trading more for the convenience of predictability and data intelligence than we realise. So far the public discussion is focused in two areas, the spread of misinformation and the use of data for commercial gain. While these are pertinent issues, we need to expand the narrative. The digital world is no longer divorced from the physical world, they are symbiotic. Digital platforms are playing a disproportionate role in the very fabric of our lives yet our ability to augment their control is limited — opt-out or delete — this is not how we live; we do not start afresh each time we face adversity, we adapt and move forward. I want to adapt my apps, I like them in my life but not when they can’t respect the dynamic person I am. We need to keep reminding ourselves that in pursuit of a more intelligent world we are still human and we’ve spent millennia building institutions to protect what is important to us. Let’s swing that same focus to our digital platforms who now hold considerable agency over our daily lives. --- *Originally published on [njadew.eth](https://paragraph.com/@njadew/i-m-helping-my-algorithms-get-over-my-break-up)*