Surfing the web in a filter bubble

According to Wikipedia a filter bubble is a result state in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past click behaviour and search history) and, as a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles.

In other words, it’s like a mini spy followed you everywhere when you surf on the net and selects what seem to match to you, your personality, your interests, your opinions etc… to suggest them.

For example, on Facebook, in the newsfeed, there are no news from all your friends appearing. With an algorithm, the social network selects friends which you seem to be the closest, people who have a Facebook relationship with you etc. for submit mainly news from these people. That is the concept of filter bubble! A bubble on the net where everything is done to understand and analyze your behavior and adapt your navigation subsequently.

For those who would still have not understood the concept, here is an example with Google:

But is there really an interest in this?

Yes if we told it can make us save time and optimize our research. But stay in a bubble which proposed us just things that we ‘love’, would it not a bit too much?

I don’t think that surfing in a bubble filter is dangerous. But however this may limit our open-mindedness and do us miss some things. If that bubble proposed us only things ‘do for us’ then how humans can question and accept the difference? Especially for the younger generations that are born and grow up with a computer and a mobile phone in the hands. Internet allows us to precisely don’t put border, barriers in the sharing of documents, ideas etc… I can find me in Japan and read a blog of an American, or then be in South Africa and follow a conference in England. Surfing the web in filter bubble borders us in a sphere where we don’t come out of our cultures and our ideas. And it is one of the bases of human evolution: openness to the world and enrich others.

In a article from The New York Times, Eli Pariser, the author of the book « The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think » say:“Personalization filters serve up a kind of invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own ideas, amplifying our desire for things that are familiar and leaving us oblivious to the dangers lurking in the dark territory of the unknown.”

Then this intensive customization would be too extensive? Surely.

A happy medium would be to find to don’t fall into extremism which would push us to see beyond our own ideas and believe in our own absolute truth!

 

Is Facebook taking over our lives?

The social network Facebook has surpassed the 1 billion active users, announced Thursday, October 4, 2012 its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “This morning, there are more than a billion people using Facebook actively each month”, he said in a statement. If the bar of the billion users is symbolic, the social network, which made its debut in 2004, expanded irresistible. In August 2008, Facebook had 100 million users.

Facebook, took so much importance in the lives of its users that Facebook is quoted in 1 of 5 divorce, newborns have no longer the right of the traditional card of birth but a photo on Facebook, announced his marriage by Facebook is essentiel and even its separation! And yet this is only the beginning.

Here are a few key figures (from Mediaventilo.com a social media agency) to better understand the extent of Facebook in the daily life of human beings humans:

-Facebook has daily 16.5 million users who share 2.45 billion different content
-210 000 years of music were played on Facebook
-On Facebook, a user has on average 130 friends
-In 2012, 1 million businesses have incorporated Facebook to their website
-80% of Internet users prefer to connect with a brand via Facebook
-77% of the B to C companies have acquired customers via Facebook
-1.1 billion photos have been uploaded on the evening of the new year!

You can watch this amazing video about social media and Facebook to learn more!

Knowing all this, we realize a little better the place of Facebook in the daily. Individuals as well as firms become addicted! Photos, articles, videos, links etc… absolutely all our lesser facts and gestures can be brought online on Facebook! You can even track a person through the new location of Facebook tools. More and more importance is given to Facebook, employers are even researching on the candidates until they incorporate the company! Attention to photos compromising and other shames!
Facebook reveals the personality of the people and their lives! Who has never lost himself in the mazes of Facebook and was looking at the profile of a person that he doesn’t know?
The virtual life of Facebook just take precedence over real life! How many Facebook friends have us whereby barely say a “Hello” on the street, while behind our screens looking at photos of his recent vacation to Hawaii or his last drunken evening? Unrealistic all this!

Yes Facebook is taking over our lives, but I think that basically we prefer not to say too much.
On this, I leave you, a night’s sleep awaits me, but before I’ll check my Facebook news if ever I missed a scoop! 😉

PS: If you want to watch an informative and entertaining conversation about “How social media is being used in both our personal and professional lives”.