I honestly don’t know what I would do without Google, I’ve become so dependant on it that it is frightening to imagine about its non-existence. We’ve all heard of the expressions, “Google it” or “Look it up on Google”, and it shows that we’ve grown dependant on it, running to it when we need solutions to our minor or major problems, or when we need quick and easy information. I mean it truly is convenient, as implied in this picture below:
Eli Pariser‘s talk about the algorithmic systematization of Google and Facebook emphasizes the point that the supposedly useful tool is actually dangerous, in that it limits our perspective of knowledge reception (by filtering out information in order to customize search results to appear more desirable, based upon what the sites have collected from the user) . It shocked me to learn about this, as I, with many others I’m sure, have used these engines, Google especially, from the start of when I learned about their existence.
Learning about this algorithmic system, I understand that Google is trying to do a good job on helping out their millions of users from all around the world even though this idea is not truly healthy for us. We can talk about short term and long term effects. Sure it makes us temporarily happy to get the results we were looking for in the first page, however, if we look at the broader, long-term picture, we may be, unknowingly, missing out much more significant information (they may be filtered into much later pages rather than the first). As Pariser states, Google not only functions to give us “what we want to see, but limits us to what we need to see”, which may be significant world events or important facts. This is critically problematic in that it limits our ability to act as a global citizen. To be a global citizen, we willingly commit to engage in the important issues that circulate around the world everyday and try to help. But if we miss out the first step in learning about these issues, how will we ever know about them let alone make action of them?
This Youtube video on “Internet Censorship and the Filter Bubble” further exemplifies my point (I encourage you to watch it as it is only 3 minutes long!). Not only do search engines limit certain things to appear on our page, but also the entire Internet realm, as it states “the Internet is hiding things from you”. This is a warning that we cannot put too much dependency or trust on the Internet. However, the video suggests that in order to break free of this “filter bubble”, we need to “change our surfing habits”. It is suggested to do the following:
- Try the search engine “DuckDuckGo“, as it does not have a “filter bubble” so everyone would receive the same results.
- Instead of using Facebook, switch over to Twitter as there is zero censorship and all updates will appear on your news-feed.
- Switch from Google Chrome to Google Incognito Mode, as it does not store history or cookies, so Google will have a harder time to track your engine use.