Blog 4 - The Filter Bubble

I selected my roommate Kevin for this experiment. We share a lot in common but are different in many ways when it comes to what we do on the web. I searched around a bit, and noticed that many ads were different though I didn't see a big difference from ad to ad. I did however see many different things in the recommended videos on YouTube, and Netflix. In comparison to my own browser it really was very different. This shows that the filter bubble algorithm is always trying to make my experience on the web very personalized to my beliefs. I'm sure that if I did the same test on for example my mom's computer I would get greater varying results. This would be because she has very greater preferences and beliefs than I do, and uses the web for much different things than me.

One way that I can almost always without fail to notice the filter bubble is to search something on amazon.com and then click on the item that I searched. Then when I go to almost any other website with ads I see and advertisement for the item I just searched. This is easy evidence that we are always being tracked and watched by companies on the internet. Other ways you can see this happen is when you look for a ticket to somewhere like a plane ride or train ride. Many times you get ads from travel agencies shortly there after if you do not purchase the ticket the first time you visit the website. 

One big question that is frequently brought up is is the filter bubble a good or a bad thing? This is talked about a lot in the Wikipedia article linked to the assignment page and down below. I'm indifferent about this and here's why. In some ways I think that it is a very good tool that helps not only the user, but also companies. It allows my google search to be more accurate to what I might be looking for based on my previous interests. I think that any way to help me get what I need faster is always a good thing. It is more efficient and my experience is better because of it. Additionally with things like YouTube searches like I mentioned it creates the website around me. It gives me a more pleasurable experience because if I'm looking for videos to watch, but don't know what I want to watch I can see things related to things I have watched in the past. This is always changing also. If I saw my recommended videos from 3 years ago they would be very different to the ones I have right now.

One downside of the filter bubble is that you have a very personalized experience. This also something I listed as a positive, but the downside is that you may never see anyone else's views on different topics. Because your content is so personalized you will only find people who agree with you, and never actually find things that you disagree with, or other perspectives to different situations. This can be bad for our society because if everyone thinks that everyone else feels the same way about things then it could come as a shock when you meet someone who do not agree with you. In the moment you may think that they possess a rare belief when in reality there is a bunch of people out there that don't agree with you that your filter bubble is shielding you from. This phenomenon has been called cyberbalkanization which was talked about in the Wikipedia article. It is the idea that the internet is split into "subgroups" which all have their own views and ideas. Because they are split up among themselves they rarely interact with each other causing their ideas to become very specific. The name itself comes from the Balkan area of Europe which is a small area with a lot of different languages, cultures, and beliefs split up among each other.

I thought this activity opened my eyes a little more to how the internet works, and how it might not be as free as we might think it is. In reality I never see and probably never will see all of the beliefs and ideas on the internet, and because of the filter bubble I probably won't see most of those ideas because of how specific my experience is made.