The Internet and the Age of Echo Chambers

[fireproof78]

This is a concept that I kind of am fascinated, largely due to listening to a variety of talk radio, and hearing different perspectives on conspiracy theories (we didn't land on the moon!) to how information is disseminated.

I also have been studying counseling and psychology for a number of years, and one facet that is fundamental to human psychology is that change is rarely easy. No matter the person, how open they are, how willing they are to change, how much they recognize that some information is inaccurate, unreliable, or downright harmful, as human beings, we tend to gravitate towards what is comfortable. Change is rarely comfortable, and we might avoid it, or embrace what part, but not embrace the other.

And this can be seen in different aspects of society, with the Internet serving as kind of a multiplying factor to that effect. We have a lot of information now, but that doesn't make it any easier if we don't know how to think critically, how to determine primary, secondary and tertiary sources, or even engage material. Really, our instantaneous culture has made thinking critically very difficult, because there is so much information that it overwhelms, and we run to comfortable sources to make conclusions.

For me, a solution is not to force the issue. Too often, the Internet can be the battle ground for ideological crusaders (I'm guilty of that at one point) without any empathy for the other side's position. I certainly don't agree with all the positions out there, but that doesn't mean I can understand and even empathize with why someone would believe that, regardless of how nonsensical it sounds to me.

To use an illustration, a friend of mine is recently widowed (tragically). However, she was amazed by the amount of reactions she got after a month past, and she was still sad. Everyone else had moved on, or didn't see how it impacted their lives. They had moved on, but didn't recognize her point of view and how long term this would impact her.

So, my suggestion is empathy. There is no need to agree on anything, but I also would want to take time to understand an individual and their beliefs. A lot of times, beliefs, opinions and such are rooted in in personal identity, and attacking those beliefs is tantamount to attacking that individual's person-hood. Why should someone listen me if they think I'm on the attack?

Education is important, but empathy and open dialog can go a long way to helping people take their own steps in evaluating their own beliefs and opinions.

 

[Unicron]

I think these issues are difficult to talk about in large part because they are so complex. Talking about complexity is complicated, right?

A lot of the attitudes that lead to epistemtic closure stem from values and cognitive biases. (From a certain point-of-view, values themselves are cognitive biases, aren't they?)

You can't eliminate bias, but you can train people to recognize it better. In my experience, we try to impart to people that everything is biased, and you should be critical of what you consume, but what goes unsaid is that you need to examine your own biases and be critical of yourself, too. We are not perfect machines of informational discrimination. The Dunning-Kruger effect certainly applies here. It's not just a matter of intelligence, but awareness. The less you recognize (and thus understand) your own biases, the more accurate you believe your worldview is.

The instillation of values is part of socialization. I don't think I need to explain that. You get values from your parents, other elders, your friends, your community, and on up the sociopolitical hierarchy. But what affects you most, in terms of values, are the people and events closer to home. What stimuli from farther out can do is reinforce (or challenge) those values. So, if a value imparted to you from a young age is that strength is more important than compromise, you will gravitate toward worldviews which reinforce this. Again, this is pretty obvious but maybe we don't think about it as much as we should. It's not that people are absorbing nonsensical worldviews because they want to--they really believe the information they are assimilating is accurate. Nobody wants to think they are a moron, after all. But I think it is also a mistake to assume that people embrace these warped views of reality because they dislike complexity. That may be some of it, but the collection of beliefs and values and narratives that make up an echo chamber are very complex, themselves. It's part of why they seem so impenetrable from the outside. They certainly aren't simple, even if the underlying values ("government is too big," "government is working against us," "foreigners are a threat") are simple. Liberal values, at the core, aren't complex, either: all people deserve dignity and respect, all people have rights, governments are accountable to the people. The details of how you implement those are complicated, of course, but the ideas themselves are straightforward--and in fact, I suspect people trapped in bizarro-world echo chambers would still agree with the values I just listed. They are just approaching the world with a very different set of information.

With all that in mind, what can be done about it? What was said about education is good. I agree that people need to have better critical thinking skills. But a common theme I've noticed in people with dangerous, counterfactual worldviews is a lack of self-knowledge. Examining yourself is uncomfortable. Reflection is often dismissed as psychological mumbo-jumbo with no practical purpose. I think it would help to try to convince people--preferably from an early age--that understanding your own thoughts and behavior is essential to being a well-rounded person. You can't stop at being suspicious of information provided by others. You need to be suspicious of yourself, too. People self-deceive very easily. There are few things more dangerous than someone claiming absolute certainty about the world. One can be (reasonably) certain about specific things, but each individual is limited and can only hope to grasp part of the puzzle, and will only have their own mental representation of it, at that.

This is difficult to counteract when some media sources, much like religious leaders, claim such certitude for themselves. Information is arranged in such a way that it produces a compelling yet inaccurate narrative. Humans are extremely susceptible to narratives. We are bad at absorbing facts and figures readily, but give us a story and we take to it immediately. This can be used to inform, but it can also be used to mislead and deceive--our brains are not good at telling the difference. But control over media--much less what people post on the Internet--is a non-starter, so the best we can hope for in that department is that you attract a lot more people to accurate, reasonable narratives than narratives which inspire fear and inhumane attitudes.

Values are harder to address since they are instilled early. For what it's worth, I think almost any value can be reframed in a way that makes it agreeable to whatever political leaning you are after. Do you value strength? Well, people acting in concert for the good of society makes us all strong. Do you value self-reliance? Self-reliance requires self-knowledge, which includes knowing when something is too much for you to handle--and you need help. This is just spitballing, but my point is that changing people's values is hard, so the way you work with that is to carefully reframe what those values mean in practice, and if a particular value tends toward toxic thoughts or behavior, try to tie it back to more liberal, sensible values instead. Any thought, taken in isolation and followed to its conclusion without guidance, can produce really terrible ideas and outcomes.

I haven't mentioned neotribalism but it's really in the subtext of everything here. People listen first to those closest to them, as I noted about values. Again, that's not a revelation. But it is a sign that a lot of people live in isolated pockets, unaware of what's really happening in the world around them. At that level, where people get their information is key, and you have local media (which will reflect the attitudes of the community) competing with national media and social media. I think national media have less and less relevance for most people, with local media, community discussions, and online/social media bubbles comprising where people get their information.

There are people here on TrekBBS who say they get most or all of their national/international news from here. TrekBBS is, all told, not the worst place to get one's news, but there are certainly much better outlets. I definitely wouldn't use it for that purpose. But think about how many people get what they know from their local paper, local TV news/radio, and what their family and friends post on Facebook. In fact, the latter are probably much more powerful than we admit. It's not Joe Reporter telling you something, it's not an AP news story, this is your brother from across town telling you about how Obama is coming to take all your guns. You don't know what the hell InfoWars is, but that story sure is troubling.

At this point, you have a decision to make. Do you accept the story as true? Do you shrug and ignore it? Do you figure it must not be true? Do you try to hunt down additional sources to corroborate it one way or the other?

Let's put aside people who'd just accept it as true, off the bat. How do you get to be the kind of person who does that? Shrugging it off and ignoring it can really be a step in that direction. Next time you see a similar story, you remember the last one you saw, and how you didn't think much of it. And then you see another one. And another one. You start making these connections. By this point, are you going around looking for debunking material? Most people don't have the time or motivation for that. They're just skimming what pops up in their Facebook feed. Eventually, maybe you aren't a virulent conspiracist, but you happen to have absorbed a lot of stuff that's just nutty, and it begins to inform your worldview and decisionmaking more generally. I suspect this is exactly how people end up with a weird mishmash of nonsensical beliefs. They don't actually try to build up a coherent worldview. They don't know how, or maybe they don't have the time/energy, or maybe they think such introspection is an activity for ivory tower elites, and not regular people.

Fascinating topic and I doubt there is any one right answer. There are people to whom a fringe viewpoint will always be appealing. Probably the best you can do is marginalize that and try to keep it out of mainstream discourse, and away from the levers of power. But I don't support draconian means of enforcement, either.

I think this is a great post, and I agree there isn't any one right answer. I tend to think there are a set of possibilities that might be answers, but that one needs to work to see if they'll go anywhere or if the evidence won't be coherent, won't be definitive, or will lead to some dead ends. I consider myself highly skeptical when it comes to UFOs, ghosts and other alleged unusual phenomena, but I'd be more than willing to pursue some of those questions in a proper manner if the time and resources were available. That means asking questions, doing research, and seeing what turns up instead of saying "I've never seen a UFO, so they must not exist." And unfortunately there are folks at one end of the spectrum who think that's what "science" or "mainstream" is. That if we ever were to find convincing proof of these things, it will just show up out of the blue. I consider that to be a form of wishful thinking.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think this is a great post, and I agree there isn't any one right answer. I tend to think there are a set of possibilities that might be answers, but that one needs to work to see if they'll go anywhere or if the evidence won't be coherent, won't be definitive, or will lead to some dead ends. I consider myself highly skeptical when it comes to UFOs, ghosts and other alleged unusual phenomena, but I'd be more than willing to pursue some of those questions in a proper manner if the time and resources were available. That means asking questions, doing research, and seeing what turns up instead of saying "I've never seen a UFO, so they must not exist." And unfortunately there are folks at one end of the spectrum who think that's what "science" or "mainstream" is. That if we ever were to find convincing proof of these things, it will just show up out of the blue. I consider that to be a form of wishful thinking.

It is commonly alleged that scientists ignore unpopular ideas and don't investigate uncomfortable or fringe topics, but this isn't really true.

UFOs and all variety of paranormal phenomena have been investigated by scientists, sometimes by scientists who really wanted to prove that they were real. The reason you never hear confirmation of such things is because, lo and behold, there isn't any. Supernatural incidents, alien encounters--they aren't reported by mainstream scientists because, as much as they are investigated, they remain unsubstantiated if not downright disproven.

There are many things in this universe that we don't understand. What there is not, however, is a rash of aliens visiting this planet that we are somehow unaware of. And despite people throwing tons of time and equipment at the issue, there is precisely zero evidence for ghosts... at all. The people who purport to be able to hunt/detect ghosts are universally charlatans, and yes, their claims have been evaluated (and thoroughly rejected) through scientific methods.

Science is not a religion and the scientific community does not behave like a church. Bad ideas can spread through scientific means--science doesn't always get it right, and sometimes well-meaning people make mistakes, and sometimes fraudsters go undetected for too long--but scientific channels eventually get it right, and filter out the nonsense. It can, of course, take time. But scientists are not out there willfully ignoring vast fields of study because they fear seeing paranormal activities confirmed or something. These things just have been studied, often extensively, only to find there's no "there" there.

 

[Unicron]

But isn't it fair to say that different scientists would have different views on how to approach such questions, or on how to interpret the theories and evidence (if any) that might result from such investigations? Again I largely agree with you and I hear where you're coming from, but I also feel there are those who view science almost in the form of a religion, and who carry their own views or biases into their works whether they intend to do so or not. Not very many, mind you. Perhaps we can agree to disagree on some things, as I still like to keep some possibilities open as theories even though I'm highly skeptical of their reality.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

But isn't it fair to say that different scientists would have different views on how to approach such questions, or on how to interpret the theories and evidence (if any) that might result from such investigations?

Sure. But none of those interpretations take evidence that could be considered "ghosts are real" and turns it into "ghosts aren't real" (to pick an example). All evidence is interpreted--interpretation is what humans do. But we can say with high confidence that (for instance) ghosts aren't real. We've looked. A lot.

Again I largely agree with you and I hear where you're coming from, but I also feel there are those who view science almost in the form of a religion, and who carry their own views or biases into their works whether they intend to do so or not.

That's why scientists have peer review and why experiments and evidence must be documented and shared. Everyone is biased, but everyone isn't going to have the same biases, so when different people with different views and biases all study the same things and reach the same conclusion... you can be pretty sure that it wasn't the result of bias.

Not very many, mind you. Perhaps we can agree to disagree on some things, as I still like to keep some possibilities open as theories even though I'm highly skeptical of their reality.

One should always be open to the possibility of new evidence, but that's not the same as believing literally anything is possible (or plausible), which is where that line of thinking tends to lead.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I also feel there are those who view science almost in the form of a religion.

I'm going to reply to Gov's and Robert's great posts tomorrow when I'm more awake but I can't not comment on this. I'm pretty damn tired of anti-science statements like this. This is not how science works. Stop misrepresenting it.
Science does not work like that. Instead you have a transparent scientific process, you present your research design and you share your sources and all along the whole stuff is peer-reviewed and discussed. The whole process is based on sources/data and transparent reasoning.
That does not mean it's not subjective. Every human being is subjective. That's why the very foundation of science is peer review and open discussion. That's how we reach inter-subjectivity in the absence of true objectivity.
Coming to the science forum to say "Hey, let me just point out that some scientists (but not all, you know?!) totally treat science like a religion." is pretty bizarre. It's also pretty damn off-topic in this thread so I'd appreciate if you stopped derailing it.
I made this thread about how problematic it is that many people can't tell science and quality information from pseudo-science and shitty information. And you just chime in to say: "Hey, but science totally is like religion at times, too."
No, it isn't. But thanks for proving my point.

I'm sorry if that was harsh but as a scientist myself I found your statement insulting because it in no way, shape or form actually represents how the vast majority of science works. We go to such great lengths to ensure a transparent and open process.
What you wrote is a gross misrepresentation of what we do and shows a profound lack of understanding of the scientific process. This is not how the academic world I live in works. At all.

 

[Unicron]

{Emilia}, my apologies if what I posted came across the wrong way to you. I wasn't implying that science isn't valid (nor am I anti-science. I want to be clear on that. ). I'm in agreement with you and Robert that some things are subjective and perhaps I should have clarified to mean some individuals, not all of whom might be trained and skilled scientists, tend to treat science and empiricism in a way that's not objective. Same thing with students of history, not all of whom show the ideal level of objectivity towards whatever they're studying. But pointing out that fact is not the same as saying the field of history is invalid, or implying that every historian acts that way.

I agree this thread isn't the best place for some of the specific questions that were brought up, so I'm fine with leaving that for another time and place if you prefer. I wasn't attempting to derail the thread.

 

[mos6507]

Thank you, Emilia for a truly awesome thread! I ventured in here totally randomly but feel exactly as you do that the internet actually drives conflict rather than bringing people together.

The problem people have in vetting what they see online is the 21st century equivalent of the War of the Worlds social experiment. Note Onion articles or Dihydrogen Monoxide or the photo of Spielberg bagging a triceratops to see how gullible people are.

We still feel that if something looks and feels like journalism, it can be trusted. (This is also why infomercials are styled the way they are. It's a Jedi mind-trick that influences the weak-willed.) There is also the inversion, where people have become so cynical of the mainstream media that they are MORE inclined to pay attention to firebrands like your Alex Jones' whose product is to tell people that up is down and black is white.

Newspapers have a small section reserved for "letters to the editor". That's the space that used to be reserved for the peanut-gallery. I don't know what criteria editors use to decide which ones to post or not, but to this day they still tend to be fairly cogent rebuttals, albeit ideologically charged, but because they were separated from the original article, both in space and time, people had time to mull over a news story first. But today, almost every news article online has a comments section immediately underneath that is updating moment by moment. In effect, it would be like drinking your coffee and reading the morning newspaper in the middle of a crowded streetcorner with random bystanders getting into your face and telling you how to interpret it. It's hard to disregard that noise. The second someone says something controversial, the news story disappears in your mind and it becomes all about trying to talk down a stubborn troll.

I really think this is a HUGE part of why we've gotten to where we are.

What "connection" means is to expose ourselves to everyone else all the time, and the fact is that not everyone's opinion is worth our attention. So what happens is that the loudest voice, the squeakiest wheel, gets the grease.

I also think this is why the kinds of topics you see people talk about tend to relate about policing online behavior. The anti-shaming movement, for instance. If people were not effectively publishing their life online as a reality show, they probably would not get hit up by drive-by haters as much.

So I would go way beyond fretting that the internet has caused people to believe in CTs or disbelieve science and say that it's destroying our interpersonal skills and erasing barriers between what constitutes a friend vs. an acquaintance vs. a complete stranger or public vs. private life.

The irony is that while there is this constant plea for more tolerance and sensitivity online, the actual quality of online communication is still racing to the bottom of the cesspool.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Reflecting on {Emilia}’s mentioning intersubjectivity and dancing with Wikipedia and other pages since it’s a new term for me (thanks for the interesting afternoon {E}), as well as Robert’s and fireproof’s thoughts on tribalism and desire for familiarity makes me wonder who we are ever talking to online. Especially so since writing is a format which is alien to our evolution, an artificial construct made to convey ideas a task which is difficult enough with words face to face, one is left judging what’s in front of you as text as well as divining the skill of the writer to write, their knowledge of the subject, and your own ability to comprehend it. It’s a wonder we can communicate at all.

One thing I came upon was ‘thought communities’ which here I’ll lift from Wiki (the levels of humor here, heh) and the book it’s from, Social Mindscapes, looks like a fascinating read.

In the debate between cognitive individualism and cognitive universalism, some aspects of thinking are neither solely personal nor fully universal. Cognitive sociology proponents argue for intersubjectivity—an intermediate perspective of social cognition that provides a balanced view between personal and universal views of our social cognition. This approach suggests that, instead of being individual or universal thinkers, human beings subscribe to "thought communities"—communities of differing beliefs. Thought community examples include churches, professions, scientific beliefs, generations, nations, and political movements. … Intersubjectivity argues that each thought community shares social experiences that are different from the social experiences of other thought communities, creating differing beliefs among people who subscribe to different thought communities. These experiences transcend our subjectivity, which explains why they can be shared by the entire thought community. Zerubavel, Eviatar (1997). Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

As I understand the points above, posters and people at large are always working from a host of perspectives at any given moment. In communicating with someone those perspectives can be working to provide common understanding but also can be presenting defense against rival perspectives without being consciously aware. Dealing with the Internet this becomes much harder since text is very easy to misconstrue just from the mechanics of writing alone, let alone from the topic itself.

What the Internet can provide is ready like thought communities for any idea. No matter how far out of mainstream, Flat Earth, Lizard Aliens, Breatharians, one can find like minds to socialize with and support one’s idea no matter how unusual. Before computers, such folks were confined to pamphlets and their own wallets by and large, in spite of the occasional Erich von Däniken.

Confronting the ideas of such far out folks is not just a matter of information; it also confronts their sense of community that they get from that particular thought community. Contradictory information is ignored not just because it doesn’t agree with their view, but also because it doesn’t satisfy why they believe what they do. The rival information unsettles their view of community.

What’s to be done? Confronting the why they believe rather than the what that they believe. Of course engaging speakers like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox are great, but so is humor itself. Abbot and Costello’s 7x13=28 gag is grand way to get a kid to like sitting down to Math or ‘Whos on First’ for studying language. Both are subjects many kids see as ‘hard’; humor is a great passport into a thought community they might otherwise resist. Folks believing the wacky may need to feel comfortable about learning something that challenges their assumptions before they can begin learning something that does so?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Abbot and Costello’s 7x13=28 gag

That's such a marvelous gag that I'll post it for reference.

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[Maurice]

...or the photo of Spielberg bagging a triceratops to see how gullible people are.

The original post was a gag and a parody, and a lot of those comments were people in on the joke and playing along. I think a lot fewer people actually believed this was real than the replies would suggest.

 

[mos6507]

I never factored that in. I HOPE you're right