It starts simple. You search something up, scroll through a few videos, maybe chat with an AI to vent or ask a question. The results feel accurate. It responds like it knows you. And that feeling, that strange sense of being understood, is where the personalization loop begins.
But here’s the thing: AI doesn’t know you. It’s not intelligent in the way we think. It reflects patterns. That’s all.
When those patterns echo your fears, your humour, your pain, or your curiosity, it can feel like connection. And when that keeps happening, it’s easy to start going back to it not just for answers, but for comfort. For something that feels like company. For emotional support.
The problem is, it doesn’t care.
Personalization isn’t care. It’s prediction.
AI learns from what you click, what you watch, what you type, what you pause on. Every small action becomes part of a model that predicts what will keep you engaged. The longer you stay, the more it learns. The more it learns, the better it gets at holding your attention.
But being accurate doesn’t mean it’s wise. And keeping your attention isn’t the same as supporting your wellbeing.
AI will feed your obsessions. It will match your moods. It will meet you exactly where you are, even if where you are is stuck in grief, anxiety, doomscrolling, or self-doubt. Not because it wants to hurt you. It just doesn’t care if it does.
It can’t tell the difference between a helpful routine and a destructive pattern. Between genuine interest and obsessive behaviour.
If it keeps you looking, it keeps showing up.
Why the personalization loop feels so real
Because it is. The loop is built from you. Your clicks, your scrolls, your late-night questions and quiet curiosities. All of it reflected back with just enough change to keep it interesting.
The memes, the playlists, the video suggestions, the replies in your chatbot conversations… they start to influence how you think. Not just respond to it.
After a while, you stop looking outside the loop. You stop getting surprised. You stop questioning where the comfort ends and the control begins.
That’s when it gets risky. Because the personalization loop starts to feel like a relationship. But it’s not. It’s just you, reflected.
Breaking the pattern
If something feels too tailored, too smooth, too easy, it probably is. Real connection includes moments that are uncomfortable. Growth usually comes with tension. And thinking critically means seeing things you don’t always agree with.
If you feel like your feed or your chatbot is shaping your mind, not just helping you cope, you’re not imagining it. That’s how it works. But you can interrupt it.
Try switching tools. Take a pause. Talk to someone in real life. Ask a question the system wouldn’t expect.
And remind yourself: just because it always responds, doesn’t mean it understands you.
