I was scrolling through my social media feed last night when I had one of those weird moments where I suddenly felt like I was looking at myself from the outside. There I was, nodding along to posts about AI developments, crypto market movements, and productivity hacks all things that felt completely natural to my interests. But then I wondered: did I seek out these topics because they genuinely resonate with me, or have I become someone who finds them interesting because that's what my digital environment has been feeding me?

This got me thinking about "habitus", a concept from sociology that describes how our social environment shapes not just what we do, but what we can even imagine doing. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote about how our upbringing, social class, and daily experiences create these internal patterns that guide how we see the world. What struck me is that this was written way before social media existed, yet it feels incredibly relevant to how we live now.

When Your Algorithm Becomes Your Identity

The original idea of habitus was pretty analog it was about your family, your neighborhood, your school. The people you physically spent time with every day would gradually shape your taste in music, your career aspirations, even the way you spoke. You'd naturally gravitate toward people who felt familiar, who shared similar values and ways of being in the world.

But now? Now we have these digital villages that work in eerily similar ways. My X/Twitter feed has become this weird mirror of my interests that I'm not even sure are fully mine anymore. I follow tech entrepreneurs because I'm interested in building wealth, but their constant posting about "optimizing everything" has started influencing how I think about my morning routine. I joined crypto Discord servers to learn about investing, but somewhere along the way I absorbed this whole worldview about decentralization and financial sovereignty.

The strange part is how natural it all feels. When I see a post about someone using AI tools to streamline their workflow, I immediately think "that makes sense" not because I critically evaluated it, but because it fits the patterns I've been absorbing from my digital environment. It's like my algorithm has become part of my personality.

The Comfort of Digital Tribes

There's something deeply comforting about finding your kind of people online. When I first started getting serious about personal development and financial planning, I felt pretty alone in my real-world environment. Most of my friends weren't thinking about investment strategies or reading productivity blogs. But online, I found these communities where everyone was discussing crypto news and vibe coding stuff like they were the most natural things in the world.

It felt like coming “home” to a place I didn't know I'd been searching for.

But I'm starting to realize that this comfort might also be a limitation. When everything in your feed confirms what you already believe, when every post resonates with your existing worldview, you're essentially living in a very sophisticated echo chamber. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's worth being aware of what's happening.

The people and content that feel "right" to me the ones that don't trigger any cognitive dissonance they're my digital in-group. And just like in the physical world, having an in-group means there's also an out-group. There are entire ways of thinking about life, success, relationships, and meaning that I'm probably not even exposed to because they don't fit the patterns my algorithm has learned about me.

What We Don't See in Our Bubbles

Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing. If my habitus is being shaped by productivity-focused, financially-motivated, tech-optimistic content, what perspectives am I not encountering? What would my interests look like if I'd ended up in completely different online communities?

I remember a conversation I saw online, about someone who's deeply involved in environmental activism. She was talking about how her entire social media experience revolves around climate science, sustainable living, and political organizing. Her version of "normal" content is completely different from mine. Where I see posts about optimizing for efficiency and latest AI news, she sees posts about slowing down and questioning consumption. Where I see opportunities to leverage technology, she sees systems that need fundamental restructuring.

Neither of us is wrong, but we're essentially living in parallel realities shaped by our different digital environments.

The Weird Feedback Loop

Here's what really gets me: the way our digital habits create this feedback loop that reinforces itself. I engage with content about personal development, so the algorithm shows me more of it, so I engage with it more, so it becomes a bigger part of my interests, so I seek out more communities focused on it, and round and round it goes.

It's like we're accidentally training ourselves to become certain types of people through our daily scrolling habits. And most of the time, we're not even conscious it's happening.

I've started paying attention to how my interests have evolved since I've been spending time in different online spaces. Three years ago, I wouldn't have had strong opinions about AI, post labor economics or personal branding. Now I have these fully formed thoughts about both topics that feel like they've always been mine, but I can trace them back to specific communities and influencers I started following.

It makes me wonder: how much of what I think of as my authentic self is actually just the accumulated influence of my digital environment?

Finding Some Balance

I'm not saying this is all bad far from it. Some of the most valuable learning and growth in my life has come from connecting with people online who challenged me to think differently or introduced me to new ideas. The ability to find your tribe regardless of geography is genuinely amazing.

But I think there's value in being more intentional about it. Instead of just letting the algorithm decide what I see, I've been trying to occasionally venture outside my comfort zone. Following people who have completely different values sometimes. Reading content that makes me a little uncomfortable. Seeking out perspectives that don't immediately make sense to me.

It's like expanding your habitus on purpose instead of just letting it form unconsciously.

The goal isn't to eliminate the influence of my digital environment that's probably impossible and not necessarily desirable. But maybe I can be more aware of how it's shaping me and make more conscious choices about what influences I want to invite into my daily experience.

After all, if we're going to live in digital villages, we might as well choose which ones we want to call home.

What I saw today:

What I listened to today:

What I liked today:

Random Thoughts:

That’s it for today! ☺️

_Disclaimer:

_{This blog reflects my personal learning journey and experiments with technology. These are my own experiences and observations as I explore the fascinating world of tech and AI.}

_{Developed with research, image generation and writing assistance using AI.}