An Oldie, but a Goodie: Using RSS to Curate your Information Intake

Remember subscriptions? When you got to decide what magazines and newspapers came into your life? I know, that was in the long ago, and maybe I’m a curmudgeon, but I miss that.

For a former academic librarian and skeptic by nature, there is a special kind of frustration in watching the world’s information intake crumble into a series of slot-machine-eque feeds. It used to be that if we followed someone, we would see what they said. It was a simple, chronological contract. But that contract has been broken.

Today, we are living in what some researchers call a "sociotechnical ouroboros"¹ — a cycle whereby AI shapes our social environment, which in turn changes our behavior, which then feeds back into the AI. We are no longer just users; we are data points in a massive experiment on engagement optimization.

If you’re feeling that low-level hum of digital anxiety—the sense that you’re being fed what keeps you angry or scrolling rather than what keeps you informed—it’s time to look at why the chronological feed died and how we can use "old" tech like RSS to build a digital home that actually respects our time.

The Death of the Chronological Era

We all remember that simpler time when logging onto social media meant seeing exactly what our friends had posted, in the exact order they posted it. We were there to catch up with people we knew, and their most recent updates lived at the top. It wasn't perfect, but it was transparent.

The shift away from this started because of a very real problem: information overload. As platforms grew, the sheer volume of content exploded. By 2016, Instagram reported that users were missing about 70% of their feeds² because there was simply too much noise to sort through manually. The subscription model — where you see what you subscribe to — stopped being tenable for platforms that wanted to keep you looking at your screen for hours.

Now, instead of what our friends posted most recently, we see whatever posts 1) have the most engagement and 2) fit the parameters the algorithm has determined we are most likely to engage with.

Why Your Feed is Now a Prediction Engine

Instead of focusing on time, modern algorithms are obsessed with engagement. This is a fancy way of saying they want to predict what you'll click, like, or comment on. The primary objective of almost every recommendation algorithm today is to rank content based on how likely you are to interact with it.

Think of it like this: the algorithm is like a spy that watches everything you do. If you linger on a photo for two seconds longer than usual, the spy takes a note. It uses "implicit feedback" — like how long you watch a video — rather than your "explicit feedback," like a thumbs up, because your habits are often more frequent and revealing than your intentional choices.

Unfortunately, this often means that divisive or outrageous content gets pushed to the top because it's the most reliable way to keep us staring at our screens.

The Problem with Letting Robots Choose

So, we know this is annoying, but does it really matter? Yes. By pushing divisive content to the top of our feeds these AI models aren’t just organizing our digital world; they’re actively changing how we behave by amplifying some voices while silently burying others. This engagement-based optimization can lead to filter bubbles and the amplification of misinformation and radicalizing content.

To make things worse, news outlets – both traditional and otherwise – have resorted to click-baity headlines in an attempt to take advantage of this algorithm-driven system. With few exceptions (AP and Reuters come to mind), headlines and content are written to manipulate our emotions in some way.

While platforms claim these systems help surface niche interests, they often end up prioritizing individual stimulation over the health of our broader communities. Because these systems focus so heavily on individual stimulation, they can lose track of broader societal values like accuracy or community health.

Setting Up Your Own Information Oasis

If you're tired of an algorithm deciding what's important, it might be time to look at RSS (Really Simple Syndication) as a way to build a feed that actually listens to you. RSS, popular back in the 90s and early 2000s, allows you to bypass these algorithmic middleman by pulling updates from your favorite sites directly into one central app.

RSS uses XML code to pull recent updates from a site into a simple, dynamic list of stories. The beauty of RSS is that it returns us to a "subscription-first" model. You choose the source, and the reader shows you the content. There is no engagement engine trying to predict what will capture your time and attention.

To get started, you just need to pick an RSS reader app—like Feedly, NetNewsWire, or Inoreader—which acts as your personal dashboard for the web. By moving your information intake away from engagement-hungry platforms and into a dedicated reader, you trade frictionless scrolling for a curated experience that you actually own.

How to Populate Your Custom Feed

Once you have a reader, the fun part begins: curating your world. Look for the small RSS icon on your favorite blogs and news sites. If you don’t see it, don’t panic—most sites still have them buried in the code. There are a few ways you can find (or even create) a feed.

• You can often simply paste the website’s URL into your reader, and it will find the feed for you.

• You can add /feed or /rss to the end of the URL, then paste that into your reader.

• You can use a web scraping tool like FetchRSS or RSSEverything to create a feed from scratch (these require an account and a little bit of tech savvy).

For us skeptics, this is the ultimate act of digital autonomy. We get to decide who earns our attention. You can follow local news, niche hobby blogs, and academic journals all in one place, without a billionaire's AI trying to "personalize" your experience into a dopamine loop.

This shift puts you back in charge, ensuring that your morning read is defined by your actual interests rather than a platform’s secret engagement formulas. Breaking up with the algorithmic feed isn't just about avoiding clickbait; it's about reclaiming your attention and making sure you're the one in the driver's seat.

Sources:

¹Bernstein, M. S., et al. (2023). Embedding Societal Values into Social Media Algorithms. Journal of Online Trust and Safety.

²Narayanan, A. (2023). Understanding Social Media Recommendation Algorithms. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.