‘It was Information Overload’: How Algorithms Amplify the Cognitive Load of New Mothers

• In Event: Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 8. Influencers & families

Abstract

Sociologists have traced the evolution of cultural ideologies that impact modern parenting today, where mothers in particular are expected to invest significant financial, educational, and emotional resources into children in order to be seen as “good” mothers. In these mothering projects, known as “intensive” or “invested” parenting, mothers typically take on the cognitive labor of orchestrating familial demands, leading to burn out, increased stress, and anxiety. This paper examines how these patterns take on new shape in the context of algorithmically-mediated social media. In an age when motherhood is platformed, I ask: how do algorithms change the cognitive labor of early motherhood? Drawing on 32 interviews with newly postpartum mothers on TikTok, I find that women spend copious amounts of time navigating the “information overload” of their personalized algorithms in the transition to motherhood. This information overload contributes to three types of “algorithmic labor” for new mothers: 1) capturing the algorithm, 2) fact-checking the algorithm, and 3) relaying the algorithm to spouses. Through tracing these algorithmic engagements, I argue that personalized algorithms amplify the cognitive load of mothers in highly gendered ways, exacerbating postpartum anxiety and stress.

Author

• Michelle Cosens, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor