(Anti)social media

reality bubbles and a more divided world

I recently saw a tik-tok that went viral where a woman explained that she happened to be sitting next to her boyfriend on the couch, both looking at the same Instagram post about another couple.

All the comments that the woman on the couch saw on the Instagram post were from other women - taking the side of the woman in the post. All the comments that her boyfriend saw were from men - taking the side of the man in the post.

The point is - it’s not just that we are being served up perfectly custom content for each of us (designed to keep us scrolling on our phones) but that even the *comments* on the same post are customised for how we will react, our political preferences, our gender etc.

Social media companies are constantly calculating what will maximise your engagement (often engagement means outrage!). We are being divided by computer algorithms and it’s usually invisible to us.

Google was the original creator of the information filter bubble. In the early days of the Internet, before search, the web was a vast playground of websites, that could all fight for equal attention. But once Google’s “page rank” algorithm became dominant (a page is ranked by how many other pages link to it), and once people started using Google for everything, then Google itself became a giant filter.

Google gives you a search result for the most popular website on a particular topic. But once a website is the most popular Google search result, it becomes more and more popular. No one ever sees the potentially thousands of websites on the same topic, you just see the one website that gets to the top first, and then is re-enforced over and over again by the Google algorithm.

Seeing conflicting opinions in your feed causes psychological discomfort, but not seeing them creates a warped reality.

The social media “filter bubble,” is term coined by internet activist Eli Pariser. In his viral TED Talk, he defined this echo chamber as a “personal, unique universe of information that you live in online. And what’s in your filter bubble depends on who you are, and it depends on what you do. But the thing is that you don’t decide what gets in. And more importantly, you don’t actually see what gets edited out.

Escaping an internet filter bubble and finding diverse viewpoints on your social media feed can be challenging but is essential for gaining a well-rounded perspective. Here are some strategies to help you achieve this:

• Identify and Follow Varied Media Outlets: Follow news outlets and blogs from across the political spectrum and different cultural backgrounds.

• Follow Thought Leaders: Identify and follow thought leaders and influencers who represent a range of perspectives.

• Engage with Different Content: Actively seek out and engage with content that you wouldn’t typically follow. Like, comment on, and share posts from a variety of perspectives to signal interest to social media algorithms.

• Disable Algorithmic Feeds: Some platforms, like Twitter, offer the option to view posts in chronological order rather than an algorithmically curated feed. This can help reduce the echo chamber effect.

• Direct Searches: Use search engines to look up specific topics and intentionally click on links from a variety of sources, including those you might typically avoid.

Conclusion

Escaping your own personal Internet filter bubble requires conscious effort and deliberate actions. By diversifying your sources, using tools and platforms that promote varied content, adjusting your social media habits and settings, and enhancing your media literacy, you can significantly broaden your perspectives and reduce the effects of algorithm-driven echo chambers. This will help you gain a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of the world.