An experiment that will help you realize the information you’re exposed / not exposed to on a daily basis.
As you scroll through your Facebook feed, snooze the connections you agree with the most.
How does your feed change?
Experiment with snoozing different people. What shows up? Let these settings remain for a few days? How do you feel about the information being shown to you? What kind of ads are you seeing? What do those ads say about the box an algorithm has put you in?
Try this on YouTube and LinkedIn. What are the changes that you notice? In a similar vein, just after the lockdown, I noticed a substantive difference my LinkedIn feed. There was actual information sharing + conversation around solving something. The pretenders were all gone. They’re back now, but I still have a strong sense of what the value was for a good digital peer community. This is something worth pursuing.
There’s something rotten about algorithms assisting us with managing our perception, but being aware of what algorithms allows us to choose our interactions. Perception has always been molded, but our brains were designed for inferring cause and effect on the Serengeti, not as part of a Hooked cycle inspired by Skinmer’s experiments on pigeons.
One can choose to consume any information one wants to be I think we should be aware that other people are consuming a different set of information. Where and how one chooses to interact with those that don’t live inside our bubble is a matter of choice. One can choose not to exercise this choice. But the choice exists.
To be clear I’m not advocating for any position. I am advocating that one should be aware.
Also science. I definitely advocate for science.