If you regularly use Google+, you’ll be aware of the recent introduction of ‘communities’, though the issue I wish to raise is relevant to everyone who reads news and commentary from any sources. This new feature offers the ability to join and read subject-specific groups, whereas users were previously accustomed to following individuals and seeing whatever was on their mind. Now, instead of listening to Charles, Caprice, and Chandelier post about astronomy one minute and gastronomy the next, you can base your content discovery on Chemistry, Cartography and Crochet, and you can also see comments on these subjects from people you don’t otherwise follow due to their enervating personalities. This superficially appealing capability represents what is actually a widespread problem across the internet, whether we’re considering social networks, news websites, forums or aggregators: the compartmentalisation of news and ideas limits the range of things you see to those things which you were already looking for.
So, you’re going to find things that you were hoping to find – how is that bad? Well, it isn’t always, but the trouble with our primate species is that we often act against our better judgement, and, in terms of news consumption, this means that we are far more likely to unknowingly seek to confirm our biases than we are to challenge our opinions. Just take a moment to think of your preferred news sources: when they’re covering something contentious, whether it’s about politics, ethics or pseudoscience, what are the chances that you could guess the author’s opinion before you even see the subtitle? They’re probably pretty high. Sometimes, it can do us good to refine our knowledge and our arguments by deliberately reading about things for which we already have a consolidated outlook, but much of the time we read news for its emotional rather than intellectual content, and the nourishment we feel is illusory. We allow ourselves the sense that we’re educating and informing ourselves despite the fact that we’ve made an implicit pact to turn to sources whose opinions we can predict in advance, meaning that we are never exposed to unconsidered questions and perspectives. This kind of insidious bias is partly the cause of phenomena such as the rampant provincialism of U.S. news.
However, this problem isn’t just confined to controversial political and moral questions; it also affects what we read about human culture and knowledge. If, for example, you join a handful of science-specific communities, or you follow science-specific accounts on twitter, instead of particular scientists each with a range of personal interests, you can be sure that you’ll come across a heap of relevant, enjoyable content, but you can also be sure that you’re never going to see that surprisingly fascinating article about W. H. Auden that Dr. Wigglesworth posted, which you’ll appreciate immensely when you’re in just the right mood to read it, but which you would never have uncovered yourself because you’re not so deeply connected to the world of literature that you’d have ever thought of finding it.
This is why I prefer to follow people rather than topics. I’m able to get a good sense of their character and interests, and while I know what kind of wonderful links and commentary to expect 90% of the time – all part of the initial attraction – I also look forward to that remaining 10% which I’d never have predicted or sought out myself, but which I still enjoy reading. We need that kind of spontaneous discovery. We need to be exposed to the unfamiliar and the unexpected, even if it’s only truly interesting one time out of a hundred. If all our interesting content is redirected from individuals to subject-specific sources, we will inevitably place subtle, unnoticed restrictions on the things that we see, and we will continue to reinforce our prejudiced ideas and interests without thinking.
Personally, I struggle with my own writing, both here and on social networks, because I know that many people who follow me have a select few major interests, while I want to be able to post equally passionately about linguistics and biology and cosmology and classical music and poetry without turning anybody off. I don’t ask you to be interested in all these things, and I’m probably never going to strike a balance that anyone else will think is optimal, but I do at least hope that intelligent, inquisitive individuals will be open to scrolling past a few unappealing posts so that they can eventually read and learn about things outside their usual interests once in a while. By following reliable people rather than rigid topics, you can be reasonably sure that you’ll get something exactly like that.
Pingback: Follow people rather than topics
You’re absolutely right – it is part of our human nature to compartmentalize information, which leads to extreme polarization. People are, in general, happier when we’re surrounded by something familiar, in general. You can see it in everything from ethnic makeup of neighborhoods to, as you mentioned, news sources. It’s a very interesting facet of our nature, one that can have devastating results if not acknowledged or managed. Thanks for acknowledging it!
There’s an interesting article on Boston.com touching on this very subject (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/). In summary, the author states that people do not change their opinions in the face of facts; in fact, they generally become more entrenched in their beliefs. This backs up your statement that news caters to the emotional element, not the informational one.
Great post – thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your comments, and also for that article. I didn’t realise that that particular research had been done a number of years ago; for some reason, I recall something similar being talked about in the news quite recently.
Of course, one of the most important tools in tackling cognitive biases such as these is simply knowing that they exist – these kinds of psychological studies are immensely valuable in that they open up the human mind to scrutiny, and let us know where we might be making mistakes without realising. However, I think it’s also important for us all to go a step further and realise that even those of us who do know about these biases, and who consciously want to follow the facts and be reliably informed, are nevertheless still prone to making these mistakes, as we never engage properly in critical thinking 100% of the time. That’s fine, it’s just part of being human, but I think we each need to regularly prick ourselves and say, even on subjects we think are self-evident, “Hang on, can I actually back this up with data? Is this thoroughly reasoned? Or have I jumped on a bandwagon because this is what other people who share my outlook and ideology believe?”
guilty as charge! boy i’m glad you’ve been freshly pressed. otherwise i’ll never get to read this. but hey i’m trying my best to broaden my horizon, that’s why i’m now on wordpress ;-)
I tend to pick a blog because I like the writer’s style and their authenticity. This leads me to reading ideas that are very similar to mine yet from a different perspective. It opens my mind to the thought that we are alike in many ways , we just come to it from different directions.
There is a quaint category you could include in this — newspapers. One can argue that you read the New York Times or Le Monde or The Guardian because you generally like and share their worldview but also know you’ll find stories, columns and op-eds therein that are less predictable. I write for the NYT freelance but I enjoy reading the variety of voices they carry. I also read the Wall Street Journal to watch the right-wingers froth at the mouth about Big Evil Government.
I blog on a variety of issues, from women’s rights to politics to humor, and my followers are almost hopelessly disparate. This lowers the number of views I get, but it confirms your theory that people seem to follow a voice they find intriguing and their editorial choices.
That’s certainly something that will be missed with the decline of newspapers – that ability to flick through and stumble upon things. Although, I say that as someone young enough to have always got my news from the internet, so it’s not really an experience I’m familiar with. Much of my news consumption was category-based until I realised the greater interest and potential of following people and sites like brainpickings.org and 3quarksdaily.
Loved to read these ideas today! This morning I read a text at Medium pushing almost exactly the oppose:
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/c4c4074591ba
I’m writing an academic paper about Pinterest and this came just in time! :)
And yes: running for the unexpected is much more fun than hangout with the same subjects on and on.
Yes, examples like that medium post – and also the decision of Bing in the past U.S. election to offer an ability to make news match your political affiliation – are, to me at least, very depressing. They scream, “I want to stay in my bubble, and I do not want to hear anything unless I know I’ll like and agree with it!”
What a perfect way to be ignorant, and a horrible way to live.
In search of my blog voice and content, I found your post to be….cleansing. It’s allowed me see that the answer lies in me…..just being myself and speaking passionately about what I’m pondering. That’s all. So, in trying to lose my self-consciousness because I see posting on the internet as posting to the world, I realize that one post doesn’t make or your break a blog….feeling a wee bit freer now…thank you.
I hope your right. I would love people to follow me because of my writing….not because of my subjects. :)
I’m so pleased! That’s exactly the same process that I’ve been struggling with. For ages, I thought, “right, to get an audience, I need to fill a niche – I need to offer thoughts on a particular subject that people will associate me with so they can always come here.” The release from that is believing that you don’t just have interesting views on a particular subject, but that you are interesting *person*, and that all people have views on a variety of subjects. The trick from there is just keeping check of yourself so that, no matter what you write about, you’re sure it’s high quality, and you’re not just publishing half-baked ideas about everything simply because it happens to be on your mind.
good writing is good writing….you always know it when you see it– such great words to live by don’t you thnk? And maybe the reason we write everyday….
Yes! I am a person. I am not a topic. I might be the remaining 10%.
This is outstanding, and unfortunately one of the biggest problems we have as a human race –> “We are far more likely to unknowingly seek to confirm our biases than we are to challenge our opinions.” ~ Callum Hacket
Great piece. I would like to put your quote (as I have posted here) in the quotes section of my blog..?
I’d be flattered! Feel free. :)
Thank you very much!
Done…I have also posted the quote on FB. Most excellent thing you have said and it mirrors the mind set of the country. Quite profound.
Only reading material that reinforces expectations can result in a lack of balance and that lack extends throughout the spectrum – from emotional maturity to scientific discovery to academic interests. Thanks for posting this. Great article.
Very true. This compartmentalization can be rather suffocating!
People have predictable biases as well. I would imagine you’ll find the same percent of information that reinforces your pre-conceived notions following a person as you would about a subject. The solution is actually to stop getting your news by following news sources, but there is now so much news out there how do you choose? I try to read in answer to specific questions I have that I don’t think I know the answer to. What are conditions on the ground in Egypt today? What are the causes of ethnic conflict in Assam? If we think we have answers, we probably don’t need to read anyway.
But I will seek you out because of ‘linguistics and biology and cosmology and classical music and poetry.’ ;)
Actually came here b/c you share the same name (and next two initials) as my 9-year-old son. I know. Simple thrills, but here in the states, it’s not a common name–but it is a beautiful one. Some thoughtful writing here. Keep plugging away.
I really enjoyed reading this post. For me, WordPress is a great way widen one’s horizon and your post is another proof of it.
Congratulations for being freshly pressed and truly deserved.:-)
Agree that as a blogger flitting from topic topic horizontally rather then delving vertically deep …….. some of the reader tend to drop out. But then these are the woes of a generalist or those with wide range of interests. :-)
You know you are a very interesting person.
As another blogger who writes about, well, a lot of stuff, I really appreciated this post. Thanks!
I think we will be better for this demarcation. We can only read and understand so much information. We certainly don’t all care about the Kardashian’s business or what Rob and Kristen are doing today!
Pingback: The Change in Our Pockets « Cheri Speak
That’s why I find the blog medium very egalitarian. Functional for those who wish to share, and diversity for those who seek to read a variety of style & content. And then there’s such a function as Freshly-Pressed which leads other bloggers like me to here to read about stuff which one wouldn’t otherwise have read about off an RSS feed from a website or even the mainstream media. Congrats.
Pingback: G. K. Chesterton on Suicide | Callum J Hackett
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
Im sure you’ve seen this before but your post reminded me of this quote, “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” (Friedrich Nietzsche) and if we only read the perspectives that we want to or are comfortable reading we will never get anywhere!
Pingback: The Internet and narrow horizons
Pingback: #Confessions: I’m back on the twitter «
Pingback: The Internet and narrow horizons | User experience design and usability in South Africa - Flow Interactive