This presentation focuses on a pedagogical approach and subsequent assignment for critically evaluating the algorithms we interact with in everyday life. While the underlying data driven processes structuring social media are often referred to as a “black box”, recent scholarship on the ethnography of algorithms offers an approach to demystifying these opaque processes. In this assignment, students created targeted social media accounts across platforms and followed the connections, suggestions, and advertisements they encountered over the course of a month. This data served as the basis for a critical reflection that unpacked how platform algorithms both shaped and are shaped by everyday interactions. Presented at the 2024 Media Literacy Matters Conference.