Recommender Systems are Flawed: A Youtube Case Study
I have recently been sucked into the world of youtube shorts. If you do not know about youtube shorts, they are exactly like Instagram reels or TikTok videos but shorter. After 3 hours of procrastinating and endless scrolling, I realized that the kind of videos I came across always seemed to be controversial, save interludes of cute dog videos, of course. While a part of me didn't think much of it, another part had me critically thinking about the effects of hours of back-to-back videos like these. Every month, 2 billion people use the YouTube application. For context, the world population stands at just over 7 billion. This means that this application is used by over 20% of people on the planet. So I did some research, and here are my findings;
Every month, 2 billion people use the YouTube application
The Formation of Echo Chambers
An echo chamber refers to an environment or situation where people are surrounded by like-minded individuals who share similar opinions, values, and beliefs. In this space, people tend to hear and receive information that reinforces their existing beliefs rather than challenging them. The danger of being in an echo chamber is that it can lead to a narrow and skewed view of the world, where people may become less…
