Have you ever noticed that when you log on to the Internet, you always see adverts for things that you are interested in? In fact, 2 different people typing the same word into the Google search engine may get completely different results. And that is all due to the Filter Bubble.
Definition
According to Techopedia, the Filter Bubble “is the intellectual isolation that can occur when websites make use of algorithms to selectively assume the information a user would want to see and then give information to the user according to this assumption.” In other words, the filter bubble is your own personal, unique universe of information that you live in online.
How does it work?
The internet browsers, websites, and apps that we use know a lot about us because they monitor how we use their site or app. This way they are able to work out what we like and don’t like. Everyone today has heard of cookies. When you visit a website for the first time and accept its cookies, they are downloaded onto your computer and keep track of how you travel around the website and exactly what you do. The next time you use the same website again your computer will check the cookies and adapt, depending on the information it stored from your last visit. So, without thinking about it, we give out a lot of information that can be used to personalize our online experience. Personalized search results from Google and personalized news stream from Facebook are two perfect examples of this phenomenon. Google itself uses around 57(!!!) different signals to determine what information you need from what computer you use to your location and click behavior.
Example
Two friends that have very different interests type the word “Egypt” into a search engine. One got results from news websites about recent events in Egypt, while the other got mainly travel guides. The results were totally different because search engines record information about what you usually look at, what you like, and what your interests are.
Advantages
The most obvious benefit of this technology is the ease of navigating the web. Try to imagine the filter bubble as a comforting obstacle that one can explore. In this scenario, let’s suppose that the bubble is a coffee mug. One could use the coffee mug just to drink coffee from it while one could use it as a vase. There is also some hypotheses that need to be mentioned:
Those using the coffee mug just to drink coffee, are doing it because they don’t want to use the mug as a vase.
Those using the coffee mug just to drink coffee, are doing it because they don’t see the possibility of turning a mug into a vase.
So, turning the mug into a vase is possible and it is about creativity. Living in a filter bubble may not be as bad as one would imagine – for “those using the coffee mug just to drink coffee, doing it because they don’t want to use the mug as a vase”.
Drawbacks
By controlling the flow of information that each individual receives, the Filter Bubble means we don’t have access to all the information that is out there. We can not decide what gets in our Bubble, but what is more, we can’t see what is outside. In the words of the Google CEO at the time (Eric Schmidt): “It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them.”The result of this tailoring is that we find ourselves trapped in a limited bubble of information.
When we use the Filter Bubble, we need to make sure that we are shown not only the information that is relevant but also something challenging, uncomfortable, and view-changing for us. So the question is what can we do? In fact, we are actually able to step outside of our Filter Bubbles and get information from other services(for example reading materials). We can also look for alternative search engines that don’t filter the content in the same way( DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Privatelee).
Conclusion
Today Internet plays a vital role in our lives, and that is why it is extremely important to know how it works and learn new ways of optimizing it to your maximum benefit. While the Filter Bubble is something inevitable, there are other ways of getting non-personalized information that we need to explore in order to get access to various kinds of information that appear every day.
Links:
https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles#t-416182
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/28556/filter-bubble
http://www.mmweekly.com/issues/issue-23-the-filter-bubble-138966
I can’t even imagine how harder would it be to find a needed result if this technology did not exist