When we go online these days, we know we’re not alone: The internet is looking back at us. Our clicks give us the information and products we ask for, but at the same time they provide information about us. Algorithms then make use of that data to curate our search results, our social media feeds, and the advertisements we see. The internet ascribes an identity to its users, and projects it back to us.

The research behind the political campaigns run by Cambridge Analytica in 2016 suggested that a few Facebook likes are enough for an algorithm to identify our gender, personality traits, sexual orientation, religious and political beliefs. “Computer-based personality judgments,” two psychologists and a computer scientist claimed in a research paper in 2015, can “be more accurate than those made by humans.” The algorithms can end up knowing us better than our spouses do. If that’s true—not all researchers think it is—what does that mean for our own understanding of who we are?

The question is particularly relevant in the wake of Facebook’s April 1 announcement that it will soon boost “algorithmic transparency” for users with a “Why am I seeing this post?” button—an update of a feature that already exists for ads, and a new feature for all other posts on a person’s timeline. Most of us have little understanding of how the algorithms in charge of our internet experience work, and have no control over them other than the information we provide, many times involuntarily. The button would be one of a few small windows into how the internet decides what to show us: Amazon’s book recommendations, for example, are supposedly based on the purchases of people who ordered the same books as us. Netflix says its personalized recommendations are based on what we’ve already watched: “The more you watch, the better Netflix gets at recommending TV shows and movies you’ll love,” the company claims. Facebook’s new feature promises to uncover part of the identity that Facebook’s algorithms have assigned us, essentially letting us in on the personality quiz we unwittingly participate in each day—a good thing, right?

People tend to love taking online personality quizzes. “Personality tests offer a structured way of self-reflection. They’re a little bit like therapy in that way,” says Simine Vazire, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. And while the tests are all based on self-reporting, “self-reporting is actually quite reliable” Vazire adds. (She is skeptical about the accuracy of algorithms judging personality solely from online behavior, on the other hand.)

But personality quizzes can not only reveal, but also shape a personality. In 2002, a Japanese study found that even when subjects took ­what were—unbeknownst to them—bogus pop psychology tests, and were then told they exhibited a particular personality trait (extroversion, for example) they tended to believe the result and proceeded to act in ways that matched that description. “While the feedback is originally inaccurate,” the researchers wrote, “it could change the self-image of people who receive the feedback, and may eventually be perceived as an accurate description of their personality or psychological state.” Believing the tests seemed to lead people to internalize them.