Filter Bubbles & AYCE Restaurants
Social media companies should not be held accountable or responsible for bursting filter bubbles. Why should they? Social media is merely a means to ‘communicate’ with one another, or in other words; voice your opinion about something you ‘care’ (or don’t care) about to a black mirror. Sure there could be actual people on the other end, but at the end of the day, as you are typing out your thoughts, which you hope will reach hundreds or thousands of people, you really are just typing on a screen. And you know what, that’s okay! This is a new age where communication between people transcends face-to-face, physical, oral, contact. Who needs body language cues when you have emojis? Kimojis? Stickers? GIFs? And the thing about social media, is that you can choose who you want to communicate with. Or who you want to be associated with. Gone are the days where you only feel rejection through someone literally telling you in your face that ‘you cannot sit with us’. You can feel it through social media too! If someone doesn’t @ you back, or favourite your tweet, or like your picture, you may feel the same sort of rejection of not being able to sit at the ‘cool table’. Except this time, no one is physically there to see your humiliation, except whoever is creeping your social media activity. And that is a very simple example of how we create our own ‘filter bubbles’ around us. We have the power to pick and choose who sits and eats with us at the social media table.
Speaking of eating, social media can be compared to restaurants, but instead of food, it serves us anything from memes, to media, to gossip, to news, to fake news - whatever your heart desires. Actually you can even look at social media like all-you-can-eat restaurants. There are so many choices for you to explore, but then there are some things you find comfort in. If your favourite dish to order at an AYCE sushi place is the spicy salmon maki, then you’re going to keep ordering the spicy salmon maki. On top of that, your friends’ favourite dish is also the spicy salmon maki. If that’s the case, is the restaurant responsible for making you try new things? To push you out of the comfort zone? No.
But wait, what about that mango roll that seems kind of good, but you’re not sure if you should order it. You heard from some vegetarians that “it’s the bomb,” but all of your friends only care about the salmon. It’s an AYCE restaurant! Of course you should try it! But who burst your bubble? You. And only you can do that. Sure the vegetarian could have gone with you to the restaurant, recommended it in person, and “make” you try it. But in the end, you made the decision to try it. We live in a world where people want autonomy and control over their choices, so we should be the ones to take responsibility for exploring different people’s perspectives. You wouldn’t blame the restaurant for not being able to try the mango roll all these years (unless you would…in which case I don’t even know what to say). Bottom line is you shouldn’t! Because it was right in front of you this whole time and you just had to venture out, try new things, and explore it for yourself.
So basically, just like my weird AYCE sushi analogy for social media, companies shouldn’t be held accountable for bursting filter bubbles. But they should, in an idealistic situation, offer you the choice to explore different options, different perspectives. Because I already know that I wouldn’t go out of my way to befriend a bunch of conservatives just to get the algorithms to give me a “conservative’s perspective” popping up on my social media feeds. I would just look it up myself if I really wanted to. And that’s the key take away… If. You. Really. Wanted. To… You. Would (in the case of bursting your own filter bubbles on social media).
