 It is day three of Mental Health Awareness Month and what we're going to be talking about today is a lot of people ask why are people more depressed, more anxious than ever before and part of it is the platform that we're currently on which is YouTube. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel sometimes what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community and talk about them and one of my passions is mental health even though I'm not a licensed therapist or psychologist I am somebody who has had my own personal struggles and I do a lot of research and reading and trying to understand this thing so if you're into that stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and yeah so we are going to be talking about the YouTube algorithm kind of explaining how it works how it's affecting our own mental health but this topic has just been on my mind since I just finished a book by Matt Hague called Notes on a Nervous Planet so like I said in the intro there is a question there is a question of why are people more anxious more depressed than ever before this book this book by Matt Hague was so good and I can't even begin to put it into words like so a lot of this book is about the anxiety we have in the modern age a lot of it has to do with technology and just the way the world is right now but he does so many like he does so much like explaining good solutions for this thing but the way it's written like you can feel you can kind of feel that anxiety because he like kind of like spitfires these lists of certain things that are making us anxious I listened to the audiobook so maybe that's why the experience was a little bit more like I really understood what he was saying by this stuff but anyways check it out Matt Hague he's an amazing author follow him on twitter he's on there all the time he's a cool dude um but anyways notes on a nervous plan I'm gonna link it down in the description below excellent book but anyways what we're gonna be talking about today is the YouTube algorithm and this is one of the reasons why our mental health is being affected now I'm a youtuber I'm on the YouTube platform and what I want you to remember and we'll circle back around to this by the end of the video is there is a solution but in order to get to the solution we have to acknowledge the problem all right so anyway something that Matt Hague talks about is how not just YouTube but social media as a whole it keeps us in a bubble okay and it's it's a tricky situation for all the social media platforms like I'm of no delusion like the social media platforms are gonna stop doing what they're doing or when we're gonna go backwards in time and stop using them there are some things that social media platforms are trying to do to kind of help the situation because they still need to make their money but they also don't want us going insane I'm gonna make another video about the Instagram like situation but anyways the number one goal the number one goal of any social media platform is to keep you on their platform for as long as possible okay why is that why is that well most social media websites whether it's uh youtube twitter facebook instagram whatever it is they make their money a lot of it comes through advertising okay with the amount of time that we're spending on social media advertisers big companies they might as well put their ads on there we're not watching tv the same way that we used to but we are on social media so the longer each platform can keep you on there the more ads that are gonna get in front of your face but what we saw with the mark zuckerberg uh you know in front of congress what was that last year like these social media platforms they are learning us they're learning our behaviors they're trying to understand us okay and this this is uh another thing that that requires balance I know a lot of people you know hate how they're tracking us and doing that I do think some of it is a little too far but here's the philosophy I have when it comes to the advertising is this is like I remember being a kid and watching like uh shows or even just being a teenager I think a teenager is a better example watching shows and they would just show me commercials that had nothing to do with me right the way I see um advertising like youtube ads facebook ads instagram ads I'm like at least you know what I want to see now you know so at least I'm like somewhat interested and now I can make the decision on whether or not to buy it but youtube in particular and I'm a youtuber I'm gonna let you get on some of the dark secrets all right as a youtuber our goal is to figure out how to get our video in front of people who are going to like this video right and the three ways that we do that is the youtube title the youtube description and the uh the tags okay and we put in as much information as possible or at least I do some other youtubers who are doing you know the quote-unquote best practices we're putting as much information in there as possible to get it out to other people like a lot of you have commented on my descriptions sometimes they're a little you know wonky or whatever it is a lot of that is just for the algorithm all right but here's the thing when you combine that when you combine what I'm trying to do as a youtuber and what youtube is trying to do by keeping people on the platform is that youtube is going to keep recommending things that you like all right it's going to keep recommending you youtubers who are in that same niche in that same genre but this can be very dangerous for our mental health and here's why it creates a bubble okay it creates an echo chamber and the one of the biggest issues that all of us struggle with is and it's part of human nature it is part of the human experience is that we are constantly looking for people to agree with us that beautiful thing called confirmation bias so what's happening is is although youtube is just trying to keep you on the platform show you more videos that you like and that you're interested in one of the issues is is that it keeps giving you the same information over and over and over and over again and I don't want to be extra about this but but it's kind of brainwashing us all right so it keeps recommending you videos about a certain topic and this is where commentary channels like myself and others I feel that we we have a responsibility to have more of an opinion more of a discussion on our channels especially if it's a trending topic we need to really put ourselves in there right um and that's just my my opinion right because I understand how the youtube algorithms going to work and something that I have to do when I'm going to come do some commentary on things happening in the youtube community or in the news or culture or whatever I just sit back and I have to ask myself understanding how the algorithm is working and how I've been watching videos that are all agreeing with one another I have to sit back and form my own opinion okay because this is one of the issues is that without even realizing it a lot of us are not forming our own opinions I made a video about this a long time ago about crowd psychology all right and it gets to a certain point where we keep getting the same information over and over and over again and we quit thinking for ourselves we're in a time right now where I feel personally just by watching human behavior on social media and everything like that I feel that we're in a time where we have less independent thinkers than ever before than ever before and this is one of the reasons I believe my mentality is such a thing so again the solution is to be aware of this to be aware of the situation so like what do I do personally when I'm researching a topic I try to look for multiple sources that don't have anything to do with each other all right I want to see both sides of the opinion a great example is last night there was some news and I was thinking about making a video on this topic I'm not going to tell you what it is because I wanted to be surprised if I end up doing it but anyways there was a topic I started seeing people talking about it I was forming an opinion and then I did some more research and I found a different opinion I was like oh okay you know and I kind of was able to sit back and form my own opinion on it and now I'm debating on whether or not I even want to make a video on that but the last thing I want to talk about and I'm going to keep bringing this up until November of 2020 like we are in the political season again I remember I remember during the last election how confused I was how I was so confused I was so confused by the results of that election okay and that's what I realized how social media was keeping me in a bubble like to anybody that was trying to get out of outside of their bubble trying to look at other people's opinions other people's points of views and things like that the results were not that surprising right but for me since I didn't understand what was happening to me and all I was doing was sitting in an echo chamber of people who had the same political opinions and views and everything like that of mine I was completely caught off guard so something that I've personally done is I follow media outlets uh news outlets uh social media people like it's not because it's not always because I agree with them but I want to hear what's going on outside of my bubble I want to find out why there's so much disagreement even though we're all working towards the same goal which is a better world you know what I mean but we all have different opinions or views or perspectives on what that better world is so I just really want you to think about this stuff think about how YouTube is keep recommending you the same videos and over and over and over again what are you doing to step outside of your bubble and last thing I'll say is this is one of the reasons why I talked about people like Joe Rogan and Russell Brandt sitting down and having a conversation together all right but anyways again Notes on a Nervous Planet is such an amazing book by Matt Hague please do yourself a favor and go check it out I'm gonna link it down in the description below all right but anyways let me know your thoughts on this do you feel that you're in an echo chamber what are your thoughts on social media and how it keeps you in your own little bubble recommending stuff that you're already interested in and not giving you another perspective let me know let's have a conversation down in the comments below all right anyways that's all I got for this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon you're all amazing and if you would like to help support what I'm doing on this channel get involved in our monthly Q&A and all that good stuff click a tap on that Patreon icon right there all right thanks again so so much for watching I'll see you next time