After our class discussion, I wanted to find the reference for the "Daily Me" and the idea of what the web becomes when you customize to an extent that you never see alternative viewpoints. The originators of these ideas - Nicholas Negroponte of MIT and Cass Sunstein of Harvard - discuss the dangers of living in an echo chamber where information merely confirms your prejudices and biases rather than opens your mind to new ideas. They argue that when you do not have the ability to run across information you would not have sought out otherwise (e.g. reading an article in a newspaper, catching a documentary on public television), people become more polarized and unchanging on the views they already held. Technology, as Professor Sunstein argues, gives us an abundance of information and an abundance of ways to close your ears to information you do not like.
A terrific op-ed by Nick Kristof of the New York Times outlines these views. There is also an interesting article by Samantha Power that shows a fantastic personal story of what happens when you do not have a filter delivering all of your news. (Full disclosure: In my previous life, my job was as the author's Research Associate. I factchecked this article. This could be why it left a mark on my brain.)
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One thing I have learned is that it is valuable to always take anything you read with a grain of salt, regardless of whether you agree with what is being said. Don't like the article on book censorship? Try tracking down the quotes used and the background of the author. Want to share this article with everyone, especially work colleagues? Make sure it's not an urban legend or a misprint. It's difficult to remember that it's just as important to check when you agree as when you disagree.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to want to be exposed to things we know will make us angry, raise our blood pressure, cause us emotional distress. It's a delicate balance, to find some middle ground between feeling we must read everything to be informed and feeling we have the right to be selective. It is particularly important to know as much as possible, of all sides, when one is working with students or other cross-sections of the general public: it's likely someone will be a proponent of something we generally disapprove of and we will need to judge when to provide alternate information, when to simply be polite and shunt the subject aside, and when to suggest that there might be more to it than the speaker is aware.