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My friend sent me this video, and immediately it was something I knew I had to share. So a brief summary is, this man speaking to the audience, Eli Pariser, is talking about how the Internet, is filtering our searches based on what it thinks we want to see. And how this is bad for us as individuals, because we’re only being fed what we know or might be related to us. Nothing new, or challenging is being exposed to us.
Watching this clip, reminded me of all the discussions that have been going on in our class.The ads on our Facebook wall, emails, and automatic search generators are all being filtered. Pariser said something that was a bit frightening. He explained that search engines like Google, not only uses our old searches to formulate a filter for us, but they also factor in, the type of computer we’re on, what browser we’re using, where’re we’re located, and so on. He said there was 57 signals that they use to tailor our search results. He showed a diagram of how we’re in this circle, surrounded by these sites we use, Google, Facebook, Netflix, New York Times, etc, and how they’re the ones controlling the information that is revealed to us.
I liked his illustration of how the tailored results are like information junk food and the information that we aren’t receiving are like information vegetables. The “healthy way” is we should be getting a balance of information that is relevant to us, and also the things that are “important, uncomfortable, challenging, other points of view.” But with the way the Interest is generating our searches are feeding us only junk food.
This site was included in the description of the clip. It’s a Q&A with the speaker. And included in it are “10 ways to turn off the filter bubble.”
http://on.ted.com/PariserQA
This video as well as many of the things we talk about in class has really opened my eyes to the real ways in which the internet works. It still amazes me how much information can be obtained on the internet and how much information the internet can take from the user. It’s kind of scary to think about, and it’s kind of unavoidable at this day in age. Today, people need to know how to use the internet but I think that less and less people actually know how the internet is using them. The idea of the filter bubble is very interesting, and the terms “junk food” and “vegetable” information seems right on. If the internet stores our history and interests then the information that we’re getting is only being filtered over and over again. Even though the site includes 10 ways to avoid the filter bubble there is still no avoiding the information that is stored by the internet. It’s a vicious cycle, the more we use the internet the more it knows, and there is no getting that information back.