Filter Bubble & Doomscrolling - A Dangerous Duo

You click the like button on a Facebook post. You comment on an Instagram picture. You share an article with your Linkedin followers. You save a YouTube video to watch later. You download a TikTok video. You search for specific news on Google or Bing.

You do all this, even though you already know that your big brother is watching you.

In fact, he is recording and storing your online behavior. He is that Mr Algorithm whom each of these digital platforms have employed.? This one is not just observing your Internet habits; but is also creating user personas, and grouping you with people of similar likes and interests.

To supposedly enhance your User Experience (UX), companies employ this friendly neighborhood Algorithm Man. Well, ‘man’ is definitely an imaginary term here, but the 'algorithm' part is certainly real.

This is used, they say, to show you more posts of your interests and preferences, and to help advertisers to target ads most relevant to you. ?

But in 2011, this is just what Eli Pariser warned the world against. He talked and wrote about the ‘filter bubble’ into which people are now being put into.

Being in a ‘filter bubble’ means these algorithms have isolated you from information and perspectives you haven’t already expressed an interest in. It means you could miss out on important information. It is an algorithmic bias that skews or limits the information an individual user sees online.

You will keep seeing stuff you showed interest in, while other valuable stuff you would need to know may never get to you. At least not until you actively make an effort, and search for it.

As a result, one of the big problems Eli Pariser mentions in his interview to the TIME magazine is what he calls, ‘autopropaganda.’

By constantly reading stories and watching videos from one side, “You are basically indoctrinating yourself with your own views and you don’t even know it”.

According to him, the potential downside to filtered searching is that it "closes us off to new ideas, subjects, and important information” and "creates the impression that our narrow self-interest is all that exists."

I, particularly, like this quote of his:

‘If you only see posts from folks who are like you, you’re going to be surprised when someone very unlike you wins the presidency.’

He says filter bubbles are potentially harmful to both individuals and society.

A bigger danger, I think, is when knowing that we are in ‘Filter Bubbles’, we do ‘Doomscrolling'.

Together, these two cannot just be merely harmful but seriously destructive to our minds.

But what exactly is doomscrolling? Well, sometimes called doomsurfing, it refers to our desire to constantly check for disturbing or upsetting news articles or videos online, often via social media.

We are all curious beings. But checking for news of pandemics, earthquakes, floods, killings, rapes, and wars will soon expose us to more and more of the same things on the Internet.

So, reading or viewing stories of doom can adversely affect our mental health.

Also, if we keep reading articles that support only one viewpoint, we will keep getting more and more online material supporting the same viewpoint. So, we may never get to see strong arguments against our viewpoint.

It would eventually lead us to fall for what Pariser calls ‘autopropaganda’.? And we will, without our knowledge, be subjected to ‘manipulation’ towards only one perspective.

An important thing we can do to circumvent this problem - of over exposure to only one viewpoint - is to actively search online for opposing viewpoints.

By reading perspectives opposed to our personal viewpoints, we will get a broader understanding of the context, even if the other perspectives do not convince us.

Most importantly, we would be beating the algorithms at their own game.?

And, hopefully, keep ourselves intellectually balanced.?

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