Is Social Media Influencing Your Beliefs?

By Emmett Blackwell

Photo courtesy of The Daily Free Pass

How well does social media really know you? When you open your for-you page, what do you see? Movie clips from a 1980s film that only a few people, including yourself, have ever even heard of? A meme confirming your exact political bias? Your most niche interests? Have you ever stopped to wonder if the algorithm knows you a little too well? Maybe you’ve decided that this is a good thing. However, this efficient entertainment comes at a cost, in what are now referred to as “filter bubbles.”

When you browse on TikTok or Instagram, they don’t just show you your friends and favorite channels. They are invisible editors, watching how long you spend on specific content, what you ignore, and what you love. All to get you to spend more time out of your day on their site. Because of confirmation bias, humans are wired to pay more attention to things that confirm their ideas and beliefs. For example, an individual with specific political beliefs will have the opposite end of the spectrum completely blocked out, leading to a suppressed echo chamber and becoming incompatible with other beliefs.

Let’s get a little deeper into the Paradox of Personalization: the idea that the better algorithms get at catering to our desires and biases, the more likely we are to become socially divided and isolated. Think about it: if you are never exposed to new ideas and points of view, how will you grow your perspective and learn more about the world? An oversaturation of ideas biased in any particular direction will lead to an inability to fix the already tense political and social climate and will only hurt us in the long run.

“The filter bubble tends to dramatically amplify confirmation bias—in a way, it’s designed to. Consuming information that conforms to our ideas of the world is easy and pleasurable; consuming information that challenges us to think in new ways or question our assumptions is frustrating and difficult.” (Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble). Eli Pariser is credited with popularizing the term “filter bubble” through his book of the same name, and he has done numerous studies on the phenomenon. It seems obvious that we, as humans, want and maybe even need to consume content that evokes a sense of relatability and camaraderie. But one of the most important things for us to evolve as a social species is debate and disagreement, widening each other’s perspectives, and gaining knowledge and understanding for those with whom we may not completely agree. At this time, education and understanding are quintessential for meaningful communication, and we would be in a potentially unrecoverably position if they are lost.