The Filter Bubble

News feeds, news, Google searches, even advertisements have become tailored to you. Based on cookies, tracking cookies, even search histories and queries. Your internet experience is tailored to you. The information you see is individualized. This prevents information from reaching you based on things you click. 

“We get trapped in a ‘filter bubble' and don’t get exposed to information that can challenge or broaden our worldview.”

Pariser says that the internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not what we need to see. I agree with that. In personal experience, it’s a nuisance. Even on social networks it brings up statuses and things I don’t  really care for. What interests me the most is the time things are posted.  I don’t normally care for what top news is, just what’s recent. What’s trending to me doesn’t really matter? 

This is different from selected filter bubbles due to the fact that one is intentional while the other is algorithmically calculated. We don’t intentionally make the decisions for what is presented to us, but rather make choices that affect what we see.  The information we search for creates our “web of one.” We become disconnected from one another just as headphones, but then are we “trained” to do so? We certainly are enabled to do so. Over selected filters we intentional make the choice to do so. 

Pariser tells us to “beware” because the information we digest shapes how we as a society move forward or not. Do we as consumers become the cattle we drove or animals we domesticate? Or do we push forward use our  intellect and ability to think and challenge?

from brain pickings.org

There is a problem with what we are shown, so how may we ameliorate the problem if there is one? By becoming aware of the situation is the first step. Taking actions into your own hands is the other. There are preventative ways such as knowing your privacy rights given. Becoming literate with the tools we use. 

But who does this affect? It obviously affects the people who have access. For example, people who spend a lot of time on the web with personal access. Their information is skewed as opposed to people who have public access whose history and searches are documented with multiple people uses. It affects consumers in a general sense and provides a simple way for “capitalists” to invade the personal spaces created by individuals. It doesn’t matter what race, class, or gender, etc., you are. Your experience on the web is recorded.

There are spaces provided on web for people to act on similar interests. The internet provides spaces that we deem as virtual campfires. According  to Jenny Ryan, virtual  place regardless of race, class, or gender for people to interact and engage with like minded people across barriers of time and space. So filtered webs don’t need to impose on our lives if we seek out our information. But then again who’s to say what see isn’t already a product of who and what we are?

Brain Pickings: The Filter Bubble vs. Curator and the Value of Serendipity

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/05/12/the-filter-bubble/

Jenny Ryan The Virtual Campfire

http://www.thevirtualcampfire.org/conclusion.htm

TED: Eli Pariser

http://www.ted.com/speakers/eli_pariser.html

TEDtalk: Beware Online "Filter Bubbles"

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html