The term “Filter Bubble” has been around for a while and has been discussed a lot recently. I consider it quite an important topic that can only benefit from the extra attention awarded here. To explain shortly: When speaking of the “Filter Bubble” it relates to the fact that the information people get “served“ is becoming more and more personalized, such as search results (Google, Bing, ..), news feeds (Facebook, ..), social advertising and so forth. This is in many cases a great thing.
Getting “custom-tailored” content served that may be of significant interest to you based on data that has been “collected” about you (search history, browsing history, profile information or email contents) or that is available from you (localization, language settings, etc.) has its great benefits. When looking for a museum, you’ll find a place close to you. This typically makes sense. Or searching for “crane”, the ornithologist is happy to find resources around birds, whereas the builder may be more interested in hydraulic machines. Makes sense. I dare say personalization might be overall a great thing when dealing with “practical” data.
The problem arises, though, when dealing with more opinion-related information. The widely used example for this topic is politics. The politically left-wing-oriented person may over time start to get more and more resources served that only cover left-wing ideas or promote a left-wing mindset based on his former search and browsing history. The “world” – accessed through personalized portals – will soon appear to him as a very left-wing place and hence radicalize him further in his already existing mindset. Whereas diversity in his findings would most likely contribute to a broader perspective, he would probably also find information that “does not suit him” and develop more diversified views on things. Over-personalization definitely has an impact on society.
Laziness is also our “enemy” here. There are ways around personalization – like configuring your browser or clearing personal information and histories. There are indications that you get personalized information served, but you have to look for them. And there are more diversified records in your search result, but probably starting on page number 5. Getting unpersonalized or diversified information is definitely possible, but it demands some effort and time, both scarce resources.
You got the overall idea. Like I highlighted, I’m no enemy of personalization, but I’m sure it’s important to develop an awareness towards this topic. Diversified information is to be the base of a healthy democracy.
Here some more (personalized by me) resources on the topic:
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