Without going into too much detail: I’m processing the ending of a long relationship. In the prelude and aftermath of that unforeseen, cataclysmic branching of my future, I found myself seeking solace in sentiment-confirming content on Instagram.

And boy, did the system react quickly. Within hours I was wrapped in a warm, personalised blanket of creators who mirrored my feelings with surgical precision. Their posts made me feel seen, heard – less alone.

Yet something felt off.

How Instagram became my therapist

My feed filled itself with the same messages:

“It’s not you, it’s them.”
“Their loss, now get up and move on.”
“Avoidant people will crush your soul.”
“Look at your life from a third-person perspective—what would you really think?”
“She said it’s over, but it’s not. Here’s how you win her back.”

To be completely honest: they got me in the first half.
More than once a video caught me in the quiet of the night, provoking a silent yet firm “Hell yeah, brother,” before cradling me into a shallow, preoccupied sleep.

Some of these posts were genuinely interesting. I learned about attachment styles, intuition, emotional literacy – it wasn’t all algo-junk. But very quickly, Instagram noticed I was going through a breakup and began bombarding me with an absurd amount of content on that single topic.

And the more it fed me, the more all of it began to sound the same.

Instagram started to feel like that friend who doesn’t quite connect to your world but nods along anyway, terrified to lose the connection.

The comfort and danger of the algorithmic echo chamber

One night, while wallowing in this endless cycle of emotional affirmation, a thought hit me with surprising force:

None of these videos are making me question myself.

And that’s where this whole reflection began.

Is the self-help algorithm really helping us or simply reinforcing us?
And more importantly: Is critical thinking the antithesis of self-help?

Because if self-help content soothes, algorithms amplify, and we crave certainty… then where does the discomfort of self-examination fit in?

Self-help in a hyper-individualistic age

Here’s the paradox:
We’re probably living in a time where more young people are facing their traumas rather than numbing them with alcohol or cigarettes. I don’t have the statistics – this is intuition – but I’m hopeful it’s true.

And there’s something admirable in that.
Working through trauma, understanding your vices, practicing self-regulation, these are meaningful acts of self-care. They tap into our need for freedom, peace, and agency.

But what these algorithm-driven videos rarely address, and what philosophers of the past did, is the question:

How does the individual fit into micro-, meso-, and macro-societal systems?

For the Greeks, liberty wasn’t just a personal journey, it was a civic one.
For Kant, autonomy wasn’t self-expression, it was duty.
For Arendt, thinking was inseparable from responsibility.

Yet somewhere along the way, we detached the self from the polis.
We replaced community with self-branding, tradition with self-curation, and responsibility with emotional sovereignty.

We didn’t become free.
We became solipsistic.

From societal action to identity micro-activism

One can even see this shift in modern activism.

Many contemporary movements -ecology, animal rights, and even LGBTQI+ discourse – often revolve around the deconstruction of what were once seen as fundamental human categories. Categories that helped us make sense of the world. Just to be clear: this isn’t me saying those movements are wrong. I have lot’s of understanding and support for their feelings and vision. It’s not about right or wrong per se, yet I can’t shake off the feeling that the way these discourses take place is symptomatic of something deeper:

A belief that the collective is inherently oppressive,
and the individual must be endlessly subdivided and liberated.

Activism no longer seeks a shared world;
it seeks to soothe the individual that can’t cope with the ‘otherness’ in the world.

It feels less like activism on the world stage and more like the dismantling of the structures that gave collective meaning to existence. With fewer shared traditions, game rules, or narratives, individuals drift further into ideological microclimates, each one tailored, algorithmically amplified, and emotionally reinforced.

Self-help as the new algorithmic activism

In this landscape, self-help has emerged as the most widely distributed form of activism.

Not activism for society, but activism against your past, your parents, your relationships – anyone who trespasses your emotional boundaries.

It is the atomised revolution of the hyper-individualistic person.
A rallying cry of ¡No pasarán! directed not at dictators but at doubt itself.

And the result?

A morally solipsistic human:
optimised for late-stage Western capitalism, obsessed with freedom, wellness, and happiness—yet strangely unfit for any future that requires solidarity, interdependence, or collective sacrifice.

If critical thought is the antidote, it’s because critical thinking breaks the algorithmic hypnosis.
It destabilises comfort.
It dares to ask, “What if I am also part of the problem?”

Something self-help and even activism rarely asks.
Something algorithms never will.

I’ll end here

If any of this resonated—or irritated you—feel free to leave a comment. I’m genuinely interested in exchanging ideas.