Summary
- Social media apps learn your preferences to suggest content on your feed for easy scrolling.
- Changing your TikTok feed involves interacting with videos you like and not interested in.
- Resetting your TikTok algorithm is permanent, but can be done to start fresh with your feed.
Scrolling is a part of daily life. It used to be on your computer, reading through articles on your desktop and trying to find something interesting on MSN or AOL. No matter how much time you spend on your phone, you’re likely scrolling at some point during the day.
Social media feeds are made to be swiped and scrolled through. Apps like Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok are designed to make your content simple to view, and as you’ve curated a social media feed that’s right for you, it starts to learn your preferences and interests to suggest new content that might also strike your fancy.
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All of these apps have suggestion pages, such as Instagram’s Discover page or TikTok’s For You Page. TikTok’s For You Page is what TikTok largely uses to compile a user’s algorithm. This, along with videos they have saved or liked or accounts you follow, are what the service uses to make up your feed. If you’re scrolling and realize that the app is suggesting too many things that you aren’t interested in, you can take the leap and reset your algorithm — here’s how.
TikTok
TikTok is a popular social media app from the company ByteDance. It has gone viral for its short form videos and influencer culture.
How to change your TikTok feed
If you don’t want to reset it entirely
Your TikTok feed is shaped by the videos you like and interact with. When you like a video by tapping the heart, the algorithm takes note and finds more content with similar hashtags, from the same creator, or on the same topic. If you want to change your feed, simply stop liking videos related to a topic you’re no longer interested in.
You can take the change into your own hands and start saying you aren’t interested in certain videos.
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You can also be more direct with your algorithm. You can take the change into your own hands and start saying you aren’t interested in certain videos. When a video appears, press and hold your finger in the middle of the screen to bring up a menu with several options. The second option, “Not Interested” (marked with a broken heart), lets you remove the video from your feed. Tapping it makes the video disappear, and a message confirms that TikTok will show you fewer videos like it.
The more you use this feature, the more you can fine-tune your feed.
How to reset your TikTok algorithm
Going completely cold turkey
If you take this step, it cannot be undone. Consider if you want to wipe out your feed and recalibrate your entire algorithm.
There’s a tried and true way to reset your algorithm on TikTok. It only takes a few steps, and you will be able to start fresh. This means that all of your preferences are wiped clean, and TikTok will begin like you just opened up the app for the first time — at least in terms of trying to find the right videos to display in your feed.
What you need to do is:
- Open TikTok.
- Tap on the bottom right button to open up your profile.
- At the top of your profile, tap on the Menu button.
- Tap on Settings and privacy.
- Near the bottom of Settings and privacy is Content preferences. Tap that.
- Tap Refresh your For You feed.
- Tap Continue.
- Tap Refresh.
This will result in your feed being refreshed, and you can reconfigure it how you want. Using the Not Interested button more often prevents TikTok from showing unwanted videos early on. At the same time, liking videos and following accounts trains the algorithm to prioritize content you enjoy. If you’re still not happy with your For You Page after rebuilding it, you can refresh it multiple times until it feels right.
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