NOVEMBER 5, 2018 (Eli Pariser 2)

NOVEMBER 5, 2018 BLOG POST
The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser

The "filter bubble," according to Pariser, begins to seem somewhat inescapable in the last few chapters of his book. He implies that the steps of personalization stretch beyond just the internet into the "real" world, where it imparts itself by doubling reality with virtualization. This prospect, at least from my perspective, is again, somewhat alarming to say the least. Pariser is essentially informing us that the "filter bubble" has a mighty potential to be inescapable, the world of personalization and, like I mentioned in my last post, predictability. I find this confining, and Pariser would agree.

For fear of being identified as a "technological heathen," I'll avoid drawing any unreasonable conclusions about the dangers of the Internet. I'll leave that task to Pariser, who identifies that the internet is both a breeder of "new ideas and styles and themes," but also a place where fundamental communication, moral, and humanistic "rules" are tested. Please feel free to call me out for these observations, but I find that "rules" truly means something to "institutionalized" really, and for the sake of the argument I'll venture forth assuming that these "rules" are just standards, rules of the Consensus Truth from modern philosophy that "most" people agree on. Navigating the world of language is difficult enough without having its borders attacked by the Internet's tests.

Couldn't an individual argue that the Internet has rewired our minds? Couldn't that same individual argue that it's changed our moral systems? our systems of thinking? and our what define as my previously mentioned "standard" (if there ever was one)? The Internet, and "filter bubble," to tie Pariser into this conversation, is dangerous, a realm that should be closely monitored when looping back around to personalization. Think about privacy, the way filtering systems have an apparent "knowledge" of what we desire, and therefore confine us within the walls of what it "thinks" we desire, and need. We've gone from being free and desire-less to being confined in the prison of unnecessary desires and needs in the form of personalized Internet experience.

Alarming indeed...

If you're feeling adventurous, please continue reading. If not, please turn back. You've been warned.

Now I'm interested in dissecting our conceptions of reality in relation to this "filter bubble" nonsense, that is, I don't consider the theory nonsense, just the fact that it should exist in the first place boxing users in with their own desires, or needs, or greed, and so on and so forth, as Joyce would say.

Now I, for one, do not want to live in a world where that world is essentially "tailored" to me, and I feel that this is what the personalized Internet experience is generating for users. The burden of experiencing the unexpected or the "inconvenient" becomes an anomaly when your world has been composed for the sole purpose of pleasing you and making your life as simple and pleasant as possible. That is no life at all, in fact, that's stripping down life to some Nietzschean illusion, a pointlessly easy existence governed by you, the center of your apparent reality. I protest this on all levels of the argument, that is, the argument that personalization is "helping" people, or providing them with a "user-friendly" experience. These programs, and arguably virtual reality, paint life a certain, very unattractively easy way. It's like taking a notoriously unattractive image and putting make-up on it for the sake of making it seem more attractive. Unfortunately, life is a "notoriously attractive image," as I so aptly put it, and it won't grow any more attractive while we distract ourselves with a false sense of pleasure derived from an easy, personalized reality. Indeed, not only is personalization removing a fundamental component of life, the difficulty, but it's also swallowing users into the void of "ease," where problems, like having to Google a pair of shoes you like, don't exist, because that same pair of shoes is already being advertised on the side-pane of your computer.

OCTOBER 29, 2018 (Eli Pariser 1)

OCTOBER 29, 2018 BLOG POST
The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser

Pariser's opening chapters seem to be more personal to him, recounting his experience with social media and reflecting on how the internet has become somewhat more "personalized" to his tastes, desires, and interests. This prospect I find absolutely alarming in the same way I find "predictive" texting annoying. It seems to me that computers, or individuals that generate computers and run them behind the scenes, are also influenced by businessmen, but that's not the point I'm chasing here. I'm thinking that, while having a personalized internet experience saves time and truly shows us what we "want" to see, it also limits us to our tastes, desires, and interests. Does this limitation strike anyone else as being somewhat odd? Doesn't being exposed to things we don't care for round us out more effectively than being surrounded by our predilections?

There is a strong possibility that my "GRE brain" is still operating at a high "argumentative" capacity, and I'm tempted to shred any argument that dares stand in my path. But back to Pariser's exploration on the personalized internet experience. Consider what this means for humanity. Reflect for just a second on what predictive functions in computers could mean for us. It means laziness, in short. It means we are given the opportunity to think less because the computer can predict what we would like to say or think or desire next. No need to take the extra step and free-think when "predictive" text already knows what word we're looking for among hundreds. The same goes for what Pariser is examining. Creating a personalized internet experience limits our exigency to think. Am I employing this word correctly? Continuing the project of expanding my vocabulary per the unintentional inspiration of the GRE.

Pariser goes on in Chapter three discussing issues with the filter bubble. He helps readers understand this phenomenon by creating an analogy with Adderall. This almost appears to me to be an examination of priority, in some ways. As in, he'd have us consider that the filter bubble, like Adderall, prevents users from growing distracted by honing in our attention on what could be considered, for the sake of simplicity, important. This sounds like an echo of priority, and the question becomes, what do we deem important? Pariser has an answer with an implication. He argues that either extreme has a poor outcome. Either results in some form of one-track thinking process that cancels out creativity, which in turn, closes down opportunities for the development of fresh, new ideas and insights.

Reflecting back upon internet personalization, I'm thinking about Pariser's terms, that is, the possibility that we should be more concerned with people than with the internet. It's easy to blame the internet for "personalizing" itself to our needs, and stripping us of the ability to think for ourselves, but the truth is that it's only designed that way with economic intent by people. I think Pariser delves into this a little in the last few chapters, skimmed them quickly, drawing from memory. So the problem of trust is not with the personalized internet, but with people, again. Predictable, perhaps. But the internet only serves as a powerful, intelligent functioning software that quickly jumps between extremes depending on who "possess" the software, or has influence over it. This may be leading into a dialogue about artificial intelligence, but I'll spare you reader. Look up Elon Musk and tell my your thoughts. We'll chat about it over coffee, although it may take a while.