The Feed Algorithm Habit

Maeve had been posting photography videos to her own account for almost a year. She mostly filmed close-up shots of light through leaves and reflections in puddles. She never posted often. Still, she loved scrolling through her app's recommendation feed for new ideas whenever she felt stuck.

梅芙在自己的账号上发摄影视频已经快一年了。她主要拍特写，比如透过树叶的光，还有水坑里的倒影。她从不常发。不过，每当灵感枯竭时，她还是喜欢在应用的推荐页里刷一刷，找点新想法。

One rainy week during exam season, stressed and tired, she watched a few cooking videos instead. It was just a small, harmless break before bed.

在考试季里一个多雨的星期，她又累又有压力，就看了几个烹饪视频。这不过是睡前一次小小的、无害的休息。

The app noticed. Within days, her feed had quietly filled with cooking videos: quick recipes, kitchen hacks, satisfying knife skills. Cooking videos began appearing far more often than photography ones ever had. The photography videos she used to see constantly became rarer, then almost disappeared completely.

应用注意到了。几天之内，她的推荐页就悄悄被烹饪视频填满了：快手食谱、厨房小窍门、令人解压的刀工。烹饪视频出现的次数，比摄影视频以前任何时候都多得多。她过去总能刷到的摄影视频变得越来越少，后来几乎完全消失了。

Weeks passed before Maeve realized what had happened. She opened her camera roll one afternoon, looking for a photo for a school project. She noticed she hadn't taken a single new photo in over a month. She used to take several a week, without even trying hard.

过了好几个星期，梅芙才意识到发生了什么。一天下午，她打开相册，想找一张照片做学校的作业。她发现自己一个多月没拍过一张新照片了。她以前每星期都拍好几张，甚至不用刻意去努力。

She mentioned it to her older cousin. He laughed and said the same thing had happened to him with fitness videos, after one accidental click. "The algorithm doesn't know why you watched something," he said. "It just knows that you watched it."

她跟年纪比她大的表哥说起这件事。表哥笑着说，他也遇到过同样的事，是健身视频，起因只是不小心点了一下。“算法并不知道你为什么看某样东西，”他说，“它只知道你看了。”

That evening, Maeve searched for photography accounts she used to follow. She watched several of their videos in a row, on purpose. She also used the feed's "not interested" option on a few cooking videos. She did this even for ones she had genuinely enjoyed.

那天晚上，梅芙搜索了她以前关注的那些摄影账号。她故意一连看了好几个他们的视频。她还对几个烹饪视频选了“不感兴趣”。就连那些她真心喜欢的，她也这样做了。

The change wasn't instant. Within a week, though, photography videos had started appearing again, mixed in among the recipes. Maeve felt oddly proud of herself, as if she had outsmarted the app at its own game.

变化不是一下子出现的。不过一个星期之内，摄影视频又开始出现了，夹在食谱之间。梅芙对自己感到莫名的骄傲，好像她在应用自己的游戏里赢了它一局。

The next weekend, she brought her camera to the park for the first time in over a month. She photographed raindrops balanced on a spiderweb for almost twenty minutes. Her fingers grew too cold to hold the camera steady. She thought about what might happen if she let the feed quietly choose her hobbies for her. She might not notice what she was losing until it was almost gone.

下个周末，她一个多月来第一次带着相机去了公园。她用将近二十分钟拍了挂在蛛网上的雨滴。她的手指冻得太僵，没法把相机拿稳。她想，如果她让推荐页悄悄替她选爱好，会发生什么。也许直到快要失去的时候，她才会发觉自己正在失去什么。