I have accounts on almost every social media platform out there today. I originally signed up for them for all kinds of reasons, but mostly because of friends, coworkers, and family. Then I discovered there was something more there. People I had never met. Content I had never even thought about before. Sometimes I don't even remember how I ended up following someone in the first place. I came there because of people close to me, but now I barely see any of them. Mostly strangers.

Today it happened again.

I opened my Facebook feed, and the very first post was from someone I unfollowed a couple of years ago. There's something slippery about that guy. I try to stay away from people like that. But somehow Facebook decided for me that I might find his post interesting. What's worse, I actually read it. It wasn't long, but it was full of conflict. The author was commenting on a video about himself and basically saying, "You better lawyer up."

I took the bait and went into the comments. I read a few comments from people I didn't know and was about to write my own when it suddenly clicked. This guy is just baiting people. And because the post was generating a lot of engagement, Facebook decided it was probably something I'd find interesting, useful, or relevant. What's strange is that with today's language models, it should be pretty easy to recognize something as simple as plain old engagement bait. So this time I ended up blocking the account entirely, just to make absolutely sure Facebook understood that I'm not interested in this kind of content.

Did you notice what happened? We came to social media for completely different reasons. But somewhere along the way, something else was slipped to us under the label of "interesting" and "useful." Add a little dopamine on top of that, and the trap is complete.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've been caught.