Trapped in the Echo Chamber

     For a medium viewed as a platform through which all the world can unite and share ideas with each other, the Internet has a surprising tendency to keep us locked up in our own online gated communities. While the internet is often romanticized as a place that transcends ideological and social boundaries, things rarely actually play out that way. As much as we hate it admit it, people would generally much rather see confirmation that their beliefs and views are correct than evidence that they might be wrong.

     For example, the video game message board I frequent is one in which the general consensus is that PC is the best gaming platform. We talk about how much better PC is than consoles like Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and everyone agrees with each other. I stick to that board because the views of the people on that board are consistent with my own. Sure, I COULD always go to a board where the posters generally hold that consoles are better than PC, but I'd rather not associate with insane people.

     What I'm trying to say is that even though the internet gives us unprecedented access to a huge new world of desperate thoughts and ideas, we generally prefer to stick to out own little "cliques" on the internet, avoiding contact with other groups and ways of thinking even as they sit only a short distance away, occupying the same internet we do. The internet follows High School rules - two different social groups will stick together and never converge with each other, even if they're sitting right next to each other in the cafeteria.

     You could always try to find some opposing views on the internet, but our benevolent corporate overlords have different plans. By tailoring search results to a privacy-violating assessment of the user, you can rest assured that Google will never allow you to see anything that conflicts with your pre-determined worldview. Companies don't want us to see things that challenge us or make us think too hard - they just want to keep us dumb, fat and happy. Yeah, that's the American way!

     In the video game Metal Gear Solid 2, there were artificial intelligences that could invent "facts" by changing the information that reached people. By simply exposing people only to the information they wanted them to see and censoring out what they didn't, they could essentially alter reality. Is this sort of thing happening now in real life with the internet? Are our search engines conditioning us to believe in a phony, pre-packaged reality by selectively picking out the results they show us? Is Google controlling out very minds!?

Don't worry, I just did a Google search about it and it assured me that everything is fine.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/23/mind-control-and-internet/
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/st_thompson_homophily