Liking used to be one of our purest instincts. It meant being drawn to something, giving it meaning and showing your own sense of beauty. Today, liking is the result of a reflex rather than a feeling. We like without thinking, because thinking slows us down, and algorithms feed on speed.
Social media, digital platforms, the content ecosystem… all of them have become practical enough to make “thinking” unnecessary. A single movement of a finger stands, within seconds, for a “preference”, a “like”, even a “recommendation”. But no real thinking is left in the process.
Not learning our preferences, but producing them
Algorithms no longer just understand who we are; they shape who we will become. What we watch, what we love and how long we look at what even determine how we think. This invisible mechanism does not “learn” our preferences; it produces them.
Free will slowly turns into a comfortable illusion. Personalised content feels like freedom, but we are actually speaking from inside a perfect cage. Whom to resemble, what to believe and what to react to are taught to us in the quiet language of “the feed”.
Scrolling feels more natural than thinking
The new generation was born into this world. For them, scrolling feels more natural than thinking, and moving on is easier than understanding. Skipping past a piece of content is a more practical reflex than pausing on it. The eye catches for a moment and moves on; the brain thinks it liked something, when it has only processed a visual stimulus. That is why we no longer know what we love; we only appear to know what we like. And that gap is one of the deepest fractures in cultural memory.
Liking has become a badge of social belonging. People like things not to like them, but to be seen. Liking a piece of content, a brand or a person signals that we are on the same frequency. But this is not a real emotional bond; it is algorithmic signalling. That is why the most-liked things in digital culture are usually the most superficial. Fast consumption rewards ease, not depth.
A new reality for brands
This has created a new reality for brands too. The goal is no longer to be noticed, but to catch attention before being scrolled past. If content does not spark interest within three seconds, it is lost forever.
As a result, advertising, communication and content production are now fuelled not by people’s search for meaning but by the maths of the attention economy. Everyone who makes content writes, shoots and designs for the algorithm’s expectations. Eventually producer and consumer become the same thing: a reflexive user.
A generation that thinks it chooses
This generation, growing up in the hands of algorithms, quickly confuses itself about freedom. They think they choose, but in fact they are being made to choose. This difference is changing how society thinks. Mental muscles such as critical thinking, patience and attention are weakening, because nothing allows us to think deeply. When something in the feed bothers us, all we have to do is scroll a little further. Even “not liking” has become a way of moving on rather than stopping to think.
At some point this cycle also flattens cultural production: the same songs, the same framing, the same trends, the same slogans. Algorithms reward repeatability, not diversity. Novelty is penalised unless it looks familiar, even inside the system. What we call a “trend” becomes not the new thing, but the most efficient form of repetition.
Perhaps we need to accept this truth: algorithms do not belong to us; we belong to them. And the more we like without thinking, the deeper that belonging becomes. Every like lets the system know us a little better. However original we think we are, our behaviour becomes ever more predictable. And that predictability is the most powerful weapon of marketing and manipulation.
Liking is now the name of a behaviour, not a feeling. A reflex. And in a world run by reflexes, feelings carry no weight.
At the end of a generation that likes without thinking, there is, sadly, a real chance of a society that lives without thinking.
