Social Media Feeds Confirmation Bias
The amazing algorithms used by the data analytic giants are pretty astounding. Those customized advertisements that speak to your subconscious are just a tip of the proverbial iceberg as to what is exactly going on.
Our subconscious is incredibly powerful. It can process 11 million bits of data per second. It constantly scans everything in our environment on the lookout for those things that validates the brains prediction loop. Click on an article or like something on a social media post enough times and the social media subconscious will then start to feed your subconscious. What you then have is a prediction loop of a different kind.
Since social media outlets are not considered to be a part of the media they are not held to any standards of integrity. Close to forty-five percent of Americans get their news from Facebook. This is pretty astounding when you consider that Facebook only shows people what they know they are already interested in and there is no attempt to distinguish the signal from the noise. What you have is a platform ripe for facts disguised as nonsense.
People do not read books anymore. Only twenty four percent of the people I this country read a single book this past year. Couple that with generally poor calibration in that we all tend to think we know more than we do, and when people are being fed information that conforms to their pre existing beliefs, it doesn't matter if said information is factual. Cures for cancer, vaccination experts, refuting the foundational laws of physics are all as arguable as anything else in this realm.
Science shows that reality is subjective and there are no real guarantees in life, but there are probabilities. If you make decisions on limited information you increase the chance of error and inaccuracies in your process. Most of the time there may not be significant consequences to this but what about it the times when there will be? Will you take the responsibility or will you look to blame someone else or something else?
We are living in a day and age when there is more information that is more accessible than ever in human history but it seems people know less than they ever have. This coincides with more people living in abundance more so than at any time in human history with people generally feeling the most miserable they ever have. These relationships seem more corollary than causal but make no mistake there is a relationship. Only by slowing things down and asking questions will the thought process filter out the noise.
Leave the social media outlets to be what they are, faux social interactions. You wouldn't go to an auto mechanic for heart surgery so why get your 'facts' from social media?
Our subconscious is incredibly powerful. It can process 11 million bits of data per second. It constantly scans everything in our environment on the lookout for those things that validates the brains prediction loop. Click on an article or like something on a social media post enough times and the social media subconscious will then start to feed your subconscious. What you then have is a prediction loop of a different kind.
Since social media outlets are not considered to be a part of the media they are not held to any standards of integrity. Close to forty-five percent of Americans get their news from Facebook. This is pretty astounding when you consider that Facebook only shows people what they know they are already interested in and there is no attempt to distinguish the signal from the noise. What you have is a platform ripe for facts disguised as nonsense.
People do not read books anymore. Only twenty four percent of the people I this country read a single book this past year. Couple that with generally poor calibration in that we all tend to think we know more than we do, and when people are being fed information that conforms to their pre existing beliefs, it doesn't matter if said information is factual. Cures for cancer, vaccination experts, refuting the foundational laws of physics are all as arguable as anything else in this realm.
Science shows that reality is subjective and there are no real guarantees in life, but there are probabilities. If you make decisions on limited information you increase the chance of error and inaccuracies in your process. Most of the time there may not be significant consequences to this but what about it the times when there will be? Will you take the responsibility or will you look to blame someone else or something else?
We are living in a day and age when there is more information that is more accessible than ever in human history but it seems people know less than they ever have. This coincides with more people living in abundance more so than at any time in human history with people generally feeling the most miserable they ever have. These relationships seem more corollary than causal but make no mistake there is a relationship. Only by slowing things down and asking questions will the thought process filter out the noise.
Leave the social media outlets to be what they are, faux social interactions. You wouldn't go to an auto mechanic for heart surgery so why get your 'facts' from social media?
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