LinkedIn just recommended a post to me that was published two weeks ago. Thanks, algorithms.
It’s exactly what I needed to find out today—what someone was thinking while the topic was still fresh, before the event had passed, before the problem had been resolved or completely escalated, and before the author had even begun to question why they were posting in the first place.
Sometimes it seems that LinkedIn doesn’t show content when it makes the most sense.
LinkedIn first puts it in a digital basement, lets it sit for a while, so it loses its immediacy, its meaning, and the last trace of context, and then dumps it into the feed like an archaeological discovery.
“Look what we found. We don’t know why it’s important, but maybe leave a reaction.”
The post says:
“See you tomorrow at the event.”
LinkedIn shows it three days after the event. The post says:
“We need to react quickly.”
LinkedIn shows it after the problem had already affected the company, the person in charge, and the budget. The post reads:
“This is an important topic today.”
And the algorithm responds:
“Take it easy. We don’t want to cause a panic. We’ll let people know about this when no one’s interested anymore.”
Then they wonder why people scroll without reading. Of course they scroll. They get content like last year’s electricity bill. They glance at it, acknowledge its existence, feel a slight sense of unease, and move on.
But that’s why they’ll regularly show you a person who got up at 4:08 a.m., drank lemon water, read two books, meditated, worked out, started a company, and realized that the key to success is to write “GROWTH” in the comments.
That’s fresh. That’s relevant. That’s clearly content that shouldn’t have to wait two weeks. The LinkedIn feed isn’t a feed. It’s a service for delivering lost business mail. Only without any notification that the package was ever sent. I suppose that’s what they call professional networking.
Except that the network works like mail from the ’90s, and professionalism arrives two weeks late.
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