Burst Your Bubble! Outsmart the Algorithms and See What You're Missing

Burst Your Bubble! Outsmart the Algorithms and See What You're Missing — page 5
IS IT BAD TO BE IN A BUBBLE Too much of anything even something you like can be bad for you Do you like pizza Lots of people would agree it’s delicious But eat too much of it and you’ll get a stomachache And if you never eat other foods like fruits and vegetables you could get sick Imagine what your life would be like if all you ever ate was pizza You wouldn’t know about chocolate Or burgers Or burritos Or Or fufu Or poutine Or dosas Now think about how the following people might feel about eating pizza Vegans Babies People who cannot digest wheat or cheese People who can’t afford pizza Someone who uses a feeding tube to get their nutrition They may feel very differently about pizza than you do WHAT ARE YOU MISSING Diversity or variety in life adds richness and excitement It presents unique and interesting points of view for you to discover Learning about other A BUBBLE BY ANY OTHER NAME In this book we’re not talking about real bubbles the kind you blow with dish soap or bubble gum Bubble is a term we’re using to describe the way we can be cut off from certain information online and in real life When that happens it’s like you’re in a kind of bubble In the pages to come we’ll mostly refer to information bubbles but there are other words and phrases that mean the same thing FILTER BUBBLE This term was made popular by Eli Pariser in 2011 It means that information is filtered and some of it is kept from us INFORMATION SILO Silos are tall towers where grain is stored so being in a silo keeps you separated ECHO CHAMBER A real-life echo chamber bounces sound waves back to you Here it describes the way that the ideas you send out bounce back to you PERSONALIZATION When something is personalized it’s customized just for you 6