“And you Google it!” – answer questions so often that, due to their triviality, they are not worth a human conversation. However, how correct is this answer? It seems to us that Google knows everything, but does it provide users with universal knowledge? Now that more and more Internet resources are tailoring their content to individual users, searches for “climate change,” “stem cells,” and even “pizza” may yield different results for different people. Network algorithms also work in the realm of politics. Disagreements in Google answers are especially noticeable in those societies where there is ground for polarization, where pre-election discussions are taking place, or where crises, conflicts, and wars are taking place.
I believe in what I read. I read what I believe
In his book “Republic.com”, written in 2001, Cass Sunstein introduced the concept of the “information cocoon”, which indicated the state of isolation of information consumers caused by their choice of sources and authors of messages. Sunstein noted with concern: people personalize what they read. They consciously form a dense “cocoon” that is filled with meanings that do not cause dissonance. Is it devoid of logic? More likely, no than yes, because each of us, admiring politician A or B’s version of the interpretation of events, seeks to fit the material under our ideas that will once again prove their correctness. The responsibility for choosing content under such conditions rests entirely on a person who wraps himself in a cocoon and is in no hurry to leave his comfort zone.
In the digital age, when we are becoming more and more dependent on algorithmic search engines, information isolation happens differently. As Eli Pariser points out in The Bubble Filter: What the Internet Is Hiding From You (2011), algorithms personalize information for us. The information bubble – the intellectual isolation of users under the influence of network algorithms – is much more dangerous than the information cocoon in which we place ourselves.
The first thing to like is the truth. Everything else is a lie
It’s hard to disagree with Parizer: it’s all pretty harmless when information about consumer products is filtered and embedded into our personal universe.
But when personalization affects not only what you buy, but also how you think, problems arise. Democracy depends on the citizen’s ability to interact with different points of view. The Internet limits such interaction by offering only information that reflects your preconceived point of view. While it’s usually convenient to see only what you want to see, sometimes it’s important to see what you can’t see.
Thanks to algorithms, everything that a specific person actively reacts to remains from the news feed, and, on the contrary, everything that contradicts his interests and views disappears. As a result, the user does not see the wider reality.
His perception of the world is deformed by cognitive distortions such as: “Everyone writes about it, so it’s true”; “Everyone thinks the same as me” or “I have a question. I’m going to look for an answer. The first thing to like is the truth. Everything else is a lie.”
Nowadays, when the information space has become extremely tense, bubbles compete quite aggressively with each other to explain what is happening in the country and abroad, among those who stayed, who left, who is at the front, who among volunteers and who tries not to notice the war , focusing on their own well-being. Fundamentally ignoring other bubbles and the people behind them becomes a significant obstacle to understanding in society. After all, it is about silencing important issues that these bubbles and people position as essential and necessary.
I want to be in a bubble where there are people, not the electorate
Technology has had the biggest impact on how we transmit and receive information. After all, the information that is distributed by the platform of social networks is often distorted under the influence of “filter bubbles”. This phenomenon arises due to algorithms that customize content according to the interests of users, creating a kind of information “capsules”. As a result, people are increasingly exposed to only those thoughts and ideas that support their own views, ignoring alternative points of view. This limits access to diverse and balanced information, which is important for forming an objective view of events.
Filter bubbles influence public discussions, reducing opportunities for constructive dialogue between different groups in society. People lock themselves in their ideological “camps”, which leads to polarization and increases social conflicts. In addition, the distorted information that circulates in such environments affects the formation of public opinion and political decisions. This is especially dangerous in the context of elections, when filter bubbles manipulate electoral sentiments, undermining the very principle of democratic elections and the right to free expression of will. This is how it can look in social networks, where protest moods are raging:
“I want to be in a bubble.
Where the pre-election races have not yet started.
…When the election races begin, people’s eyes become glassy, people themselves turn into zombies, they begin to dream of a good father who will come and restore order, and people with glassy-eyed zombies are temporarily not people, they are the electorate.”
Each user of social networks sees information that is tailored to their interests and views, and this content is unique to each person. This means she can be lonely in her bubble. We usually do not know how and on the basis of which data this “information capsule” is created. For example, Facebook hides the approaches it uses to personalize content. In addition, we find ourselves in a bubble automatically, the formation of such filters is involuntary – it is a consequence of participation in the ecosystem of social networks.
In search of a universal theory
The current stage is called the “post-bubble stage”, because the former bubble is contradictory, in some places funny and bad, but comfortable – it has been destroyed. And what replaced her is not about meaning, but about survival. Such a Darwinian filter-bubble of Ukrainian society.
Thomas Kuhn, a historian of science and author of the book “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, expressed an interesting idea about the development of science, which can also be broadcast to society. Kuhn pointed out that there is a dominant theory that should explain all cases that occur in practice. As soon as a theory fails to explain even one case, it collapses, and a new theory takes its place, which is likely to suffer the same fate later on.
Each of us, until today, has had his own theory, formed within the framework of the previous bubble, and hoped that it would explain all the current realities. Instead, what has been happening in the last two and a half years puts these multiple theories under a huge question mark. The demand for a new universal theory that could explain the situation in Ukraine today is higher than ever. Will we find it, and will it be universal enough to free us from returning to the stage of local bubbles, where everyone has their own imperfect theory that does not stand the test of practice?
