Between Daydreams: Tracking my algorithm-driven consumption
Image by Victoria Bencsik @somuchluvindisclub
Eva Sachar, former Data Reframed Steering Committee member, and workshop designer and facilitator extraordinare, was struggling with with digital addiction last year and began a project to analyze her weekly consumption. She categorized everything she ate, bought, read, listened to, and watched as algorithmically influenced or organic and has been documenting it on Substack.
Introducing Between Daydreams – musings on tech, society, and exiting the algorithm
Hi everyone!
I hope you’ve all been well, I miss our discussions in workshops!
I wanted to share what I’ve been working on recently. During my time with Data Reframed, we explored so many topics within tech and society like Data Ethics, Responsible AI, Surveillance, and Disinformation. This got me thinking about how much our phones and the internet shape our lives. We need them for everything, to unlock the car, authenticate access to websites, remember birthdays, drive, maintain relationships, take photos, etc. Since our phones are always within arms distance, it’s so easy to get sucked into endless scrolling through emails, news, social media, music, the list goes on.
It’s overwhelming to be constantly consuming, but because we need our phones to function and participate in society, we’re stuck interfacing with too much digital content.
I’ve also been thinking about how little control we have over what content is surfaced to us - everything from ads, explore feeds, “recommended videos for you”, Amazon search results, and news updates are curated by what tech companies have determined they know about us and what they want to sell us. Once we “opt in” to these digital media platforms, we opt in to their algorithms, which not only determine what we see, but what we think and learn and feel.
I began wondering what it would mean to “exit the algorithm,” especially after reading Filterworld. How much are we influenced by these algorithms? Does it matter?
Summer 2025: heirloom tomatoes + the sleep schedule of a grandma
To answer these questions, I started tracking my weekly consumption - basically everything I ate, bought, read, listened to, and watched. I categorized everything as algorithmically influenced or organic and have been exploring how much the algorithms influence me through the explore feed, targeted ads, recommended content, etc. I published 11 of these weekly consumption lists and I’ve also written reflections about Good Consumption, My Take on Instagram, Balanced Consumption, and You Are What You Eat.
When I started this project, I was definitely struggling with digital addiction. I averaged 200 pick ups a day, felt a lot of guilt while scrolling Instagram, was drowning in emails, and always feeling fomo. I’m now more in tune with these behaviors, try my best to use my phone like a landline (by leaving it in the living room, especially overnight), keep Instagram deleted when I’m not posting, and have internalized that the digital world is not reality. I don’t have to explain the mental burden of being addicted to your phone, it’s a universal experience, but tracking my consumption has helped me reform my information diet and I finally feel free!
I expected that the algorithm-driven consumption would be less meaningful to me or be less credible, but I did not find this to be true.
Instead, consuming less and being intentional about what I interact with and how it makes me feel has made all the difference and really reformed my experience on the internet and the role my phone plays in my life.
I’d love for you to join the conversation! If you’re interested in exploring how our digital lives are shaping us, you might really enjoy my Substack, Between Daydreams. And if you’re interested in sharing your own “consumption list” or an essay on a related topic, I’d love to feature your work - please reach out!
–Eva
About the author
Eva Sachar
Eva ….