Filter bubbles, algorithms, polarization, and living in different worlds? What you can do about it.
We’ve all read stories about how algorithms, polarized media, and so on are leading to situations where people with different political views learn such different information about the world we might as well be living in different worlds.
If one person watches only liberal media and another only watches conservative media, they view events through different lenses. One may view the environment as an issue about protecting wildlife while the other may view it as protecting our government from being taken over. Therefore the first might view a politician proposing emergency powers to act as taking things seriously and a potential savior. The other may see that politician as threatening dictatorship.
The pattern happens across many issues.
I can see polarized media. I can see how the algorithms lead people into bubbles. I can see how people in different bubbles can see the world differently. I can even see the media companies responsible for a large part of the effect.
I also see a big part of the problem being that people don’t just watch the other media and learn the others’ views. Nothing is stopping a Fox viewer from watching CNBC and vice versa. Nothing is stopping the free market evangelist from reading How to Be an Anti-Racist or a woke college student from reading Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek.
Yet they don’t do it. When I talk to people on the right, people on the left act like I’m talking to the enemy. They act like it’s wrong just to talk to them. People on the right presume when I say the word sustainability that I’m woke and shut down.
Advice to improve your life in this area”
People: read and watch what people you disagree with do. You won’t be corrupted. You’ll gain empathy and understanding. Learn their backgrounds and world views. You won’t think less. You’ll think more.
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