Where are we eating today? Young adults' out-of-home consumption practices shaped by social media algorithms

Abstract

Digital and algorithmic technologies, in particular, are gradually becoming an integral part of urban space, practices, and corresponding experiences within it. They mediate daily life and shape how residents understand urban life and practices, thus entering into close relationships with people. Algorithms, in return, cannot be separated from social factors and are conceptualized as sociotechnical assemblages. This project aims to explore how young adults, the primary audience for content generation and consumption on social media, interact with or encounter algorithms in their eating-out routines. Amsterdam, as a culinary and gastronomically diverse city, offers an excellent landscape for addressing the consumption experience out-of-home. Drawing on a theory of social practice, sociotechnical assemblages, and time geography, this project explores the nature and experiences of those algorithmic interactions. By interviewing ten young Amsterdam residents aged 21 to 30 and employing the diary method, this study examines the nature and practices of recommendation interactions. The findings suggest that algorithms are mediators of culinary, digital, and social consumption, streamlining the whole eating-out experience for the resident/user. Recommendations shape, filter, and transform the consumption landscape for individual residents, who, in turn, negotiate their agency through resistance, adaptation, and acceptance. Finally, theoretical implications and future research advice are discussed at the end.