Reflections on Using a Manual Hard Drive for Music Listening and Moving Away from Algorithm Recommendations

Algorithms are a part of our everyday life, and they help us get more of what we want, right? Well, in Kyle Chayka’s new book he argues that this has flattened culture, making the popular things more popular, and the obscure things more obscure. I read his book “Filterworld” during my iPod experiment month. I was feeling frustrated with Spotify’s algorithm and decided to listen to music exclusively through an iPod for a month.

I loved Kyle’s book so much that I had to reach out to talk to him more about it. A clip of this interview appeared in the first video of this iPod month series on Digging The Greats, but today I’m bringing you our full conversation. I loved getting to talk to Kyle, and especially loved his book as it hit the nail on the head. So here’s my full interview with Kyle Chayka, author of Filterworld: how algorithms flattened culture.