I cut out Social Media earlier this year, and it's been one of the best decisions I've made. Part of why I started was remembering that we didn't have doom-scrolling apps before smartphones. The change has been tremendous since I've been trying to go back to more "intentional" media. When I find myself distracted and wanting to pick up my phone, I realize there isn't really anything on it for me to do and am forced to just put it away. So I've started getting into the habit of keeping a book on me wherever I go. I've read 4 books this year!
There's a big difference between a forum where every visitor sees the same front page (more or less) and something like Facebook where every visitor sees a list of things curated just for them.
If you are only exposed to points of view that you already agree with, over time it's easy to forget that some people have other points of view (which are actually not always completely ridiculous, despite what you may have heard). Note that rage bait does not count as a divergent point of view; it's almost always a cherry-picked caricature, not anything close to a good faith representation.
This might not sound like such a big deal, but do that for billions of individuals and you have the perfect recipe for the political polarization we are currently enjoying.
It's less of a difference than you might suspect. The personalized curation is in which forum you choose to visit. HN is quite niche by numbers; it's a lot smaller than say bodybuilding.com or even AR15.com. That you choose to go to news.ycombinator.com is your personalization, and also skews your view on the world. Most of the world is interested in very different stuff.
Isn't that the whole point? That I have chosen to visit that and personalize? Otherwise, you could say all personalization skews the worldview, and you'd be technically right (the worst kind of right).
When you're talking political polarization on a societal level, it's a distinction without a difference. The distinction is that when you personalize by site, it's an explicit coarse-grained choice by the individual. When you personalize by algorithm, it's an implicit fine-grained choice by the individual, which is then aggregated and turned into an explicit stream of content by the algorithm. In both cases, you are adapting the content someone sees by what they want to see.
The sort of national unity that we took for granted between 1945-1995 (and to some extent from 1920-1945) was explicitly manufactured by mass media. Here technology presented the same content to all people, because it was cheaper to do it that way. Before the invention of consumer radios in 1920, we had a similar political polarization as we do today, if not even moreso. Also the Federal government was significantly weaker, lacking even powers like direct taxation, let alone the mass surveillance it has now.
>When you personalize by algorithm, it's an implicit fine-grained choice by the individual
I'd argue it's not so much a choice by the individual in that the individual often isn't consciously aware and may actually choose to use the same thing without the algorithm that pushes them towards things such as bubbles if that were even a clearly presented option.
I've seen much bigger dumpster fires on Hacker News threads than what my friends put on Facebook, which is 99% just personal updates and pictures.
Sounds like a personal problem if your friends are going around causing dumpster fires.
rvshchwl · · focus · HN ↗
astura · · focus · HN ↗
usefulcat · · focus · HN ↗
If you are only exposed to points of view that you already agree with, over time it's easy to forget that some people have other points of view (which are actually not always completely ridiculous, despite what you may have heard). Note that rage bait does not count as a divergent point of view; it's almost always a cherry-picked caricature, not anything close to a good faith representation.
This might not sound like such a big deal, but do that for billions of individuals and you have the perfect recipe for the political polarization we are currently enjoying.
nostrademons · · focus · HN ↗
sandblast · · focus · HN ↗
nostrademons · · focus · HN ↗
The sort of national unity that we took for granted between 1945-1995 (and to some extent from 1920-1945) was explicitly manufactured by mass media. Here technology presented the same content to all people, because it was cheaper to do it that way. Before the invention of consumer radios in 1920, we had a similar political polarization as we do today, if not even moreso. Also the Federal government was significantly weaker, lacking even powers like direct taxation, let alone the mass surveillance it has now.
modo_mario · · focus · HN ↗
I'd argue it's not so much a choice by the individual in that the individual often isn't consciously aware and may actually choose to use the same thing without the algorithm that pushes them towards things such as bubbles if that were even a clearly presented option.
usefulcat · · focus · HN ↗
Calling it a dumpster fire would be an insult to dumpsters.
astura · · focus · HN ↗
Sounds like a personal problem if your friends are going around causing dumpster fires.