As technology continues to advance, social media platforms have adapted to market to us by analyzing our preferences for pages, people, and products. However, in their efforts to curate a feed for every individual, they end up creating certain biases.
I recently took on the challenge to see how damaging or beneficial this social media marketing strategy could be. As a Pakistani who has remained apolitical, my Instagram and Twitter feeds are mostly devoid of any new developments in the country’s politics; nonetheless, if I ever interact with a post that leans towards a particular political party, the same feeds will portray the other parties in a pessimistic light. Such algorithms tend to push particular narratives on their audience, e.g, a supporter of party A will be unaware and hence unable to acknowledge any of the positive progress brought about by party B, in turn hindering B’s support. This brought to my attention that people who don’t go out of their way to keep up with news on various perspectives, such as the empowerment of women from diverse backgrounds, or the ostracization of minorities, would be unable to help bring awareness to causes that truly need it. Therefore, according to Eli Pariser, we must try to consciously become a more responsible digital citizen. Firstly, you must acknowledge that your online experience is likely being tailored specifically to you, and it isn’t a neutral or complete view of the world. Since algorithms tend to hide information that you might not usually interact with, you must purposefully look for “unexpected encounters” that spark creativity and democratic change of ideas. The “you loop” created by social media forums can be broken by varying your digital behaviour. Moreover, as responsible digital citizens, we must broaden the horizons for public discourse, encouraging the embracement of technological benefits without ignoring negative consequences. Hence, you must question the relevance and source of any information presented to you, instead of accepting it objectively.
Conclusively, even though the internet is beginning to lose its original purpose as an open platform due to companies like Google and Facebook curating invisible information filters, we can attain a healthy and balanced information diet by actively seeking ideas and perspectives that might not subjectively pique our interest, or we might even oppose.