The truth is that algorithms don’t invent appetites; they learn them. So if we’re being fed dopamine-sized bites of content, it’s because we—the viewers, commenters, double-clickers, tappers, and scrollers—keep engaging it. The attention economy is, quite literally, built on the audience’s attention, and we decide what thrives and what doesn’t.

We do a lot of moral posturing on the subject of online content. Long-form content is good, short-form content is shallow, TikTok has eroded attention spans, Twitter (now X) has destroyed the reading culture, and long email newsletters will save us all. But despite how much we call out fast content, we keep swiping, scrolling, and tapping. Perhaps we, the audience, are the problem.

Take a good look at the topics that dominate X trends, TikTok’s “for you” page, Instagram’s “explore” page, and YouTube’s recommendations. Outrage and controversy perform well, regardless of the topic. About 139 million Instagram reels are watched per minute, and TikTok is now a major news source for most young adults across the US. These metrics show that despite the so-called outrage over fast content, it’s what sells. Clickbait thrives because people click on it, and let’s not even dive into how fast and viral cyberbullying content goes.

Usually, this is the point where we blame the technology—specifically, the algorithm. We throw up our hands to show that we’re helplessly devouring the content fed to us by the content machine. But our algorithms mirror us, and this is perhaps the most uncomfortable fact of all. Social media algorithms across the various social media channels monitor user interests, actions, and behaviors to recommend relevant content. In this marketplace, user attention is the product, and repeat customers keep the market going. This leads to a cycle: users click on fast content, the algorithm learns this behavior and prioritizes such content, and then creators create more of it because it has been shown to perform well. The result of this cycle is an ecosystem where depth and nuance are lost to excitement.

Some may argue that it’s not the audience’s fault. After all, we have been rewired and our attention spans have shrunk. However, this may not be the case. It turns out the claim by Microsoft’s 2015 study that human beings had shorter attention spans than goldfish may have been inaccurate. Instead, our capacity to filter information has evolved to keep up with multiple distractions. While there may be an argument for our increasing lack of patience as an audience due to the many distractions surrounding us, the truth remains that the internet did not invent impatience.

The question now is whether we, as an audience, can reward the media we claim to want. History suggests that this is possible. The recent podcast boom shows that people can consume hour-long conversations when presented in the right format.

Also, long-form journalism that prioritizes thorough reporting and analysis over clickbait is gaining ground. An example of a slow journalism organization is The Slow Journalism Company Ltd, which publishes the magazine Delayed Gratification. Delayed Gratification prides itself as being “the world’s first slow journalism magazine,” and “last to breaking news.”

Another example is Tortoise Media, which produces podcasts and holds live discussion events. With their recent acquisition of The Observer, this organization is investing more in slow journalism and thorough reporting.

Nothing in this essay excuses the big corporations and the huge roles they have played in getting us to where we are. There are also no excuses for the exploitative labor conditions behind most of the content we consume today. There is a need for accountability from both large and small media and a commitment to making the content landscape better overall.

However, accountability cannot stop there. If we, as an audience, really want a healthier media landscape, we need to look in the mirror and interrogate our own media consumption habits. Do we deliberately click on trashy articles? Do we ignore nuanced work because it’s not instantly exciting? Do we share “rage-bait” content despite its triggering nature? Do we care more about getting engagement than sharing value? These are questions we need to honestly answer in order to move forward.

The shift begins with us. We need to consciously reward thoughtful and insightful content so that the algorithm can learn that behavior and show more of such content. This means supporting long-form journalism organizations, as well as modifying our personal content consumption habits. Small repeated behaviors can result in culture shifts. So, seemingly small acts like curating your feed, ignoring clickbait, and consuming more long-form content can lead to a cultural reset.