# Algorithmic Cultivation: How Social Media Feeds Shape User Language

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.17010 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.17010/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 59 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [BERTopic: Neural topic modeling with a class-based TF-IDF procedure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05794/) (2022)
- [A Computational Approach to Politeness with Application to Social Factors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1306.6078/) (2013)
- [Quarantined! Examining the Effects of a Community-Wide Moderation Intervention on Reddit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.11483/) (2020)
- [Mental Health Coping Stories on Social Media: A Causal-Inference Study of Papageno Effect](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.09885/) (2023)
- ["I'm in the Bluesky Tonight": Insights from a Year Worth of Social Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18984/) (2024)
- [The Social Dynamics of Language Change in Online Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02075/) (2016)
- [Bluesky and the AT Protocol: Usable Decentralized Social Media](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03239/) (2024)
- [Mental Health Impacts of AI Companions: Triangulating Social Media Quasi-Experiments, User Perspectives, and Relational Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22505/) (2025)
- [Bonsai: Intentional and Personalized Social Media Feeds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.10776/) (2025)
- [Does Positive Reinforcement Work?: A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Effects of Positive Feedback on Reddit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.20410/) (2024)
- [The Language of Approval: Identifying the Drivers of Positive Feedback Online](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.10370/) (2025)
- [The Hidden Toll of Social Media News: Causal Effects on Psychosocial Wellbeing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.13487/) (2026)
- [#anorexia, #anarexia, #anarexyia: Characterizing Online Community Practices with Orthographic Variation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01411/) (2017)
- [Examining Algorithmic Curation on Social Media: An Empirical Audit of Reddit's r/popular Feed](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.20491/) (2025)
- [Effects of Algorithmic Trend Promotion: Evidence from Coordinated Campaigns in Twitter's Trending Topics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05382/) (2023)
- [The Dawn of Decentralized Social Media: An Exploration of Bluesky's Public Opening](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03146/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Algorithmic feeds have become primary environments for encountering information online, yet while they shape what people see, less is known about how sustained feed exposure shapes how people write. Drawing on Cultivation Theory, we examine whether algorithmic feeds function as online environments that leave measurable traces in users' language. We leverage a large-scale longitudinal dataset of 235M posts by 4M users on Bluesky, and conduct a quasi-experimental study matching an initial pool of 368,513 users exposed to one of three feeds -- News, Science, and Blacksky -- with a pool of 2,001,915 active control users who did not engage with any of these feeds. We examine linguistic evolution across three dimensions: lexico-semantics, psycholinguistics, and topics. We find that users exposed to these feeds show significantly greater stylistic accommodation, semantic alignment, and register formalization than matched controls. These effects vary markedly by feed identity -- Blacksky produces the deepest psycholinguistic restructuring, with significant shifts in cognitive processing, affective expression, and pronoun use, while News and Science effects are largely confined to register and topical focus. Regression models reveal that reposting is the most consistent predictor of linguistic convergence across all feeds, whereas posting and bookmarking show feed-dependent effects, with effects differing more than fourfold across feeds. Our work extends Cultivation Theory beyond belief formation to linguistic behavior, demonstrating that feeds function as persistent linguistic environments that gradually shape what and how users write online. Our work has implications for studying algorithmic influence, online identity formation, and the design and governance of feed-based platforms that mediate online interactions.