Facebook leaders were concerned people were only looking at posts from friends and not spending enough time on the app looking at ads. They told engineers to develop rules that would search the entire database and present people with posts that Facebook thought you want to see.
Twitter executives faced a similar problem. They wrote similar rules, called algorithms, to keep you on the app longer.
So, I wondered about our spiritual reading—the Bible and other writers. Do we allow someone to determine what parts we read and spoon-feed us just their point of view?
I have spent little time on social media for several years. What they thought I wanted to see was not congruent with what I really wanted to see. (Interestingly, the number of referrals to this website from Twitter has dropped by 90% over the past few months. Go figure.)
Fortunately, there is no app filtering what I should see in the Bible or in my other spiritual reading. I read out of curiosity and out of desire to refresh my poor memory.
Things like the thought I just heard, “He’s God. I’m not.”
Things like, “The first is to love the Lord your God… and the second likewise is to love your neighbor…”
I need those reminders to keep me on the right path and likewise to guide my reading.
Leave a Reply