If you’re reading this post, then you are on the Internet, and according to Eli Pariser, your online experience is undoubtedly being filtered. What you see and the information you receive are most likely being tailored to your personal interests, surfing history, internet purchases, group memberships, and other personal data. This data is then used to create a profile and then market to that profile—that’s you. As Mr. Pariser points out, this filtering is also likely to become even more intensive and refined in the future. For those of us who rely on the Internet for our information, news, and opinions, this is a cautionary tale. It raises important questions. How much are we being fed what we want to hear and see, and what we already think? How does this translate into one’s behavior and activity in his or her daily life? How much is each of us living in what Pariser calls a “filter bubble?”
The same questions might apply at a psychological level. What are the filters that have developed through our experience and through what we’ve been taught? These are questions I’ll leave for another time.
Tom Z
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