A Web of One or Big Brother 2013 (The Filter Bubble): What can you do?
to all of you 20 somethings who did not read George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother is not just a tv show on CBS.
( by Andy Marx)
Did you know:
- “Google uses 57 different signals to shape individual search results, including what kind of browser you're using and where you are.”
- “Facebook does much the same thing with its News Feed function: if you click on certain friends' links more often, you'll see them float to the top of your screen, while unpopular links disappear. “
- “Yahoo! News — the biggest news site on the Web — is personalized, and even mainstream sites like those of the New York Times and the Washington Post are giving more space to personalized recommendations.”
Living in the bubble:
Everything from your Netflix, to your news feeds will be tailored to you based on a number of conditions- your search history, location, type of device you are using and your browser. So are you really connected to everything? It looks like the web is not connecting the world, but we are isolating ourselves in an insulated technological bubble.
What can you do?
Think about our job, teaching children how to think at a higher level through analysis, synthesis, evaluation. As a history teacher, I strive to educate my students on evaluating bias, breaking down positions and opinions, and then formulating your own. The scary part is we are slowly beginning to only hear our own opinions fired back at us... much like conservatives watching FOXnews or liberals glued to MSNBC, our technology is being manipulated to feed us what we already know. So as we become more advanced, and ubiquitous computing becomes the norm- there in lies a hidden danger- we will never learn how to challenge ourselves, “think outside the box”, learn from debate, or heaven forbid... think for ourselves.
As a teacher- keep this in mind... expose students to a number of views, help them experience life outside of their geographic, and technological bubble!
Think about our job, teaching children how to think at a higher level through analysis, synthesis, evaluation. As a history teacher, I strive to educate my students on evaluating bias, breaking down positions and opinions, and then formulating your own. The scary part is we are slowly beginning to only hear our own opinions fired back at us... much like conservatives watching FOXnews or liberals glued to MSNBC, our technology is being manipulated to feed us what we already know. So as we become more advanced, and ubiquitous computing becomes the norm- there in lies a hidden danger- we will never learn how to challenge ourselves, “think outside the box”, learn from debate, or heaven forbid... think for ourselves.
As a teacher- keep this in mind... expose students to a number of views, help them experience life outside of their geographic, and technological bubble!
Please Read:Just test yourselves- in your comment section- take a screenshot of a google search on “Russia”- and just compare what it looks like with your classmates... then we will learn a lot about you, and maybe you may learn more about someone else!
I guess there is a fine line between the personalization of media and media bias. I think your point of educating students on sources is very valid and important. Most media is revenue based, and their sole purpose profit, sometimes at the expense of accuracy.
ReplyDeleteWith information so readily available, it is easy to consume the first thing that pops-up, rather than searching multiple sources. Students need to understand the views of the media giants (Yahoo, FoxNews, MSNBC,...etc) to understand the slant and make sure that they are evenly informed.
I think Andy's Russia experiment might be an interesting project for students to do at the middle or high school level that could help teach media bias:
DeleteAllow students to use the internet to search for things that interest them. Then once google has had enough time to collect personal information (i'm not sure how long that would be) ask each one to google a topic that could be deemed controversial (yet still school appropriate, of course) and have them discuss the differences in related articles or viewpoints. Great way to start a debate as well!
Screenshot?
ReplyDeleteCan screenshots be added to replies? I need a lesson!
DeleteWhat I find interesting here, is that google, Bing, facebook, and all the other companies that "tailor" their search engines to you never advertise it in that way. You might think that they would want you to know, and advertise it as a selling point- "Let google know you," (or something more catchy).
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty, I never thought about my searches being biased, I just assumed that what I was looking for would present both sides of the story. I did try to take a screenshot of my Russia google search, and what I got is exactly the same results at Andy's. I think that for us to find a difference, based on personal information, we'd have to look up something more controversial- politics, perhaps? Also- not sure how to copy/ paste the screenshot into the comment box anyway. I'm not sure it allows that??
I don't disagree with your point about Google making it more known that your search history is actually used for something. While I certainly don't feel Google hides this information, they also don't put it out front and center either. I wonder if any of that will change as the line between personal and public computing continues to blur and erode.
DeleteChristian, I agree with your comment, "While I certainly don't feel Google hides this information, they also don't put it out front and center, either," Your remark reminds me of an ethical issue that the speaker in the TED talk, Eli Pariser, speaks about toward the end of the video clip. Pariser asserts that Google and others have a "civic responsibility" to provide balance in creating the criteria for the filter bubbles, and he calls for that criteria--the way the gatekeepers choose to screen and direct data--to be transparent.
DeleteLet's not forget how and why Google started - as a search engine. While it may not seem that way, search is really what Google is about and where they make sure to focus time and resources. They do a good job of making users forget this by their clean search page. However I'm sure somewhere in the "legal wording" no one reads and automatically accepts it says we give permission for Google to use information on our searches how they want and I'm fine with that.
ReplyDeleteReal world example where I appreciate this - as I'm on vacation, Google Now will bring up driving directions to places I have searched for more information. It uses my searches and location to recommend places to go or things to see. I appreciate this as I am presented with information before I request it - pretty cool to me!
I am seeing the benefits of the filtered search, as Christian is pointing out with his vacation example. It seems to me that Google or other search company using information about me so that they can send me targeted information and advertisements is what, at least in part, helps pay for the free search service Google is giving me, especially since I don't have to respond to the advertisements.
DeleteOf more concern, is when there might be important information, or varying perspectives, on a topic that are not presented as a choice. It makes me wonder if we just need to search for our topic in a variety of ways. Are there actions that we can take to help expand (or even sort of confuse) our filter bubble so that we have fuller information?
Also, I'd have to confess that I'm not that unhappy in the filter bubble I'm in! I've been so pleased with how Internet search engines have helped me as a teacher and in life, in general. Like a fish who is swimming and can't see the water it swims in, I can't detect that there is a filter bubble, usually, except for targeted ads, which just seem to switch out occasionally, depending what I've search for recently. I'd be curious to hear if anyone has felt that their filter bubble detoured them around important information with a problematic outcome.
In some ways, I like that the search engines tailor the incoming information to your interests. For example, I have added the words "for kids" or "for children" so many times after my searches (as in "creative writing projects for children") that I often get education links at the top of my lists even when I don't put those words in, which can be helpful. On the other hand, I wonder about the "filter bubble" that I am placed in, and I wonder what information I am missing. It makes me think I should search for random things that are outside my typical interests, or even opposite my interests, just to purposefully increase the range of the filter bubble.
ReplyDeleteI really like the graphic with the big circle and the bubbles outside it from the TED talk by Eli Pariser that you added, Andy. I think it would make the concept of the filter bubble understandable to even some of my fourth and fifth grade students. Along with my Language Arts co-teachers, we teach children in fifth grade how to analyze whether or not a Website is a valid source for research. I think that I would like to add some of these concepts to my lesson plans, at least for my most advanced groups, so that they can be aware that the searches themselves, over time, affect the search results, and there might be more useful information or other perspectives out there that might have been selectively filtered.
Andy, I captured my screen shot, but I'm unable to add it to the reply box. I think that the experiment is a cool one, but I also think we need to dig a little deeper than just the first page. My first page is very similar to yours in the Russian search. I attended a conference two years ago in Rockport, MD. and one of the key note speakers was Alan November. He spoke of this very issue...the issue of us being google-ized. One interesting lessons he asked us to do was to do a search on the American Revolutionary War. He asked us to do the search with a US internet code and a UK internet code and the description we would get of the Revolutionary war is very different. In America, we were taught that the revolutionary war was over taxes. In Britain, the American Revolution has been portrayed as being a war fought over slavery.
ReplyDeleteHaving students search global issues from different perspectives by using country internet codes would be a great exercise for any content area. This would also help us to break the google-ized form that google tries to pigeon hole us in.
What a great idea, searching using different country internet codes! Thanks for sharing
DeleteI really liked that idea of using Google from different countries to see that countries perspective on the topics that we are teaching our students about. Maybe this would be a way to get around the fact that Google is trying to show you the results that are the most relevant to you. If we can use other countries Google searches we will get a perspective possibly very different than our own.
DeleteI think that my Google page looks pretty close to yours but I tried searching a couple of things with my wife and we definitely had some different results. Especially when it came to shopping. I would type something about shopping and typically get something having to do with gadgets. When she would type something about shopping she would get clothes or makeup and so on.
ReplyDeleteI think that you bring up a good point about how if everything is tailored to who we are and what we already think then how will we ever get the other side's point of view and be able to have an honest debate about the issue. I think looking at the the other side’s point of view could easily become diluted or even lost as we become more personalized with technology.
I tried several ways to try and get the picture in there but could do it. Anyone else have any luck?
DeleteI also tried several times and could not post my screenshot. My "Russia" Google results were similar to, but not exactly the same as, Andy's.
DeleteI love the screenshot activity. I would like to incorporate the screenshot activity into my ekids class. Students, let alone most adults truly understand what is really happening when they are using the internet. Is it bad Google keeps track of your searches? I'm not sure it is necessarily a bad thing, considering most of us would get mad if we went onto our Google account and "home" was no longer programed in. We currently live in a time where we can literally get any information we need at a click of a button. Google is definitely lends a helping hand in getting this information, so for now I am okay with them tracking my searches.
ReplyDelete