You live in a tiny bubble inside Google: this is how you segment your searches

Neuroscientist David Eagleman says that the brain, and therefore us, is "locked in a vault in silence and darkness in the skull." As social animals, we think that the isolation of our own society is palliated with interactions.But what if the network of networks, which apparently connects us and frees us from our personal prejudices, were limiting us?

Related

Internet is a Wonderful place, there is no doubt.But search engines, which indexed and organized the content to make it accessible, can build around us an ideological cage from which to escape is difficult.With each search we add one more bar to our bubble and we segment the information we will want to get in the future.The next experiment will surprise you.

Meet with your friends and look for the same term

Long ago I did the innocent experiment: I asked a group of close friends to look for the word "technology" in their terminals.Although many achieved similar results, the news that appeared was not the same.Most opened the search engine with the definition of technology, although others appeared ads.A few, news, and varied according to the user.

You live in a tiny bubble inside Google: this is how you segment your searches

"Technology" may be a very neutral term, but try the experiment with other words.Try other interesting and more polarized examples, such as "party." And with people like coworkers, family or friends to see ideological differences between groups .

Searching for this term, people very freaks of a sport will probably locate the next meeting of their team.Whoever follows the policy will get the latest news from the party to which they are affiliated.In addition, our team or political party could appear ahead of the rest.

If you wonder how Google knows your tastes, hobbies or ideology, keep in mind that, like Facebook, it is dedicated to knowing.Every time you do a search, learn that it moves you, and reflects it.Yes, weave a curious resonance mechanism around you.

The resonance mechanism: is it the fault of the algorithms?

Google's results are part of a complex undisclosed algorithm with hundreds of parameters.We know that previous searches, as well as the websites that you regularly consult, influence .But to understand the mechanism of Google resonance let's use a simpler scheme.Let's listen to music.

Let's say we love the classic and that we listen to it without stopping on YouTube.Thanks to the automatic player, when one piece finishes, another begins.If we don't like it, just press the arrow.This network learns, based on our searches and minutes of belonging to a track, which we like.

As a result, as soon as you access YouTube we will obtain in the "Recommended" section those songs that could be pleasant for us.The more hours we dedicate, the better the algorithm refines your response.It is a type of search that rewards content similar to that we have already consumed .

You live in a tiny bubble inside Google: this is how you segment your searches

If we follow scientific dissemination channels, the web will recommend similar content.There are two "attractor" structures that this video website usually follows.If we search for A, we will probably recommend B, C...Similar content.Content we like.Nice.

The algorithm will point in the direction of one or more large attractors, polarizing our internet access. Polarizing us .And with that we enclose/lock ourselves in a tiny bubble inside Google.But there is something which has more weight than previous searches or the playing time in a video: the like or "manita above".

I don't like the 'I like' button

If we have started with Google it is because it has become our window to the internet, but it is not the only system that designs a nice cage ideological around us using algorithms.It has long been shown that Twitter also performs that function helping us polarize our surroundings .

You live in a tiny bubble inside Google: this is how you segment your searches

The graph above shows "moral contagion based on political ideology." It can be seen how tweets written by liberal people (blue) are retweeted by liberals.And as written by conservatives (red), by conservatives.Barely a fraction manages to cross the gap.Thanks, Twitter.

A good part of this split comes from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn...they know what we like, and, as they know it, they show it to us and leave aside art, opinions, ideas or debates which, however, dislike us .The "I like" button has contributed to the neural networks of social networks know us.Maybe too much.

According to a study published by Wu Youyou (PhD in the NICO) and other researchers, some social networks are able to judge people's personality better than their own acquaintances, based on their fingerprint.The "I like" button has contributed a lot to generating this footprint.Even models society in ways we are not aware of , yet.

Adam Alter, author of 'Irresistible.Who has turned us into technological yonkies ?', analyzes the released dopamine after seeing a "Like" in our publications.He concludes that It has become a new drug.And Juan Soto Ivars already commented in Arden the networks' the power of this button, and its consequences.

Bubble, offense and needle universes

Soto Ivars also warned, reading the signs of the present, where social polarization leads.Butterfly skin for the mind, we ulcerate as soon as a hint of debate appears over the horizon to fight for our idea.Mechanisms are then activated Unclean as victimhood.

Google, with the help of its algorithm, helps us to weave a beautiful reality around us that from time to time is punctured.A foreign tweet or an external news enters in the form of a needle, our bubble universe makes 'pof' and the offense arises.The same about which the writer Ana Ribera Molinos spoke a few days ago in "I get offended, you get offended, he is offended, we are all asshole"; or that the writer and novelist Javier Marias analyzed asking for some calm and restraint.

You live in a tiny bubble inside Google: this is how you segment your searches

Did you test Google searches with your friends? Try now with the most searched terms in 2017.Or with any of these: Barca, Maxim, PP, Madrid.Now compare them with the people in your immediate environment, family and friends.And then ask to see the results of coworkers.

The experiment is interesting to verify and demonstrate how our interaction with the search engine segments our future searches and, therefore, locks us in the comfortable monochromatic prison of our choice.Not bad, it is a nice place.Until someone approaches a needle.

Images | iStock/ALLVISIONN, iStock/TheaDesign

Comments

Internet of plants: a tomato knows as much about networks as you

The possibility of plant species communicating through complex networks, what some scientists have called the internet of plants , is an issue that has been discussed for a long time, at least 20 years.It was in 1997 when the scientist Suzanne Simard , from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada), published a study in the journal Nature on how Forest plants use complex systems where species exchange nutrients, send warning signals and relate to the environment. Although there is no scientific consensus, several investigations seem to support this hypothesis.If confirmed, as we read in a fascinating report by the Sinc Agency, the forests would act as huge structures that are articulated under the soil through a network in which factors invisible to the human eye interact and can determine the future of the climate.Understanding how it works is the challenge that even science faces. internet of plants and the wisdom of forests The premise of Suzanne Simard ...

New setbacks for conspiranoicos: radiofrequencies do not affect health

New evidence published by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency and Health (CCARS) in its 2016 Radio Frequency and Health Report indicates that there are no adverse health effects derived of exposure to radio frequencies emitted by mobile phone antennas or radio and television broadcasting.No evidence has been found on the danger in wireless systems (Wi-Fi) or airport scanners. The new 2016 Radio Frequency and Health Report collects, updates and analyzes the scientific evidence on the subject for the period between January 2013 and June 2016. radio frequencies are not dangerous According to the conclusions of the report " the critical analysis of the evidence supports that there are no technical or sanitary reasons that justify the arbitrary and discretionary imposition of more demanding exposure limits than those recommended by WHO-ICNIRP and the Union European ", while the application of more restrictive limits" would imply increasing the n...

GIF history: where they come from and where they are going

Funny, witty, curious... GIFs have already become a regular resource in social networks and messaging applications and have become part of our daily lives and jokes.It is an image format that has evolved significantly throughout its history and is experiencing a new awakening. In fact, to find its origins, we must go back more than twenty years ago .A moment in which they had little to do with what we know today and an evolution that we could not stop review.So let's find out where they come from and try to catch a glimpse of where they are going. What is a GIF The word GIF responds to the acronym of Graphics Interchange Format , or what is the same, graphic exchange format.A term for the graphic format used in the network for both static images and animations.In more concrete terms, it supports 8 bits per pixel and allows you to display images with up to 256 colors simultaneously-limited by a palette of 16 million-. This particularity makes it a perfect ally of infogr...

Amazon Prime Video arrives in Spain: this is all you need to know

That during the last years there has been a change in the way we enjoy audiovisual content is an obvious reality, as reflected by the huge popularity of streaming services like Netflix and the like.A context in which new competitors are constantly added and that, after the landing of this company in our country just over a year ago, is in full transformation. In fact, today we have learned of the incursion of a new protagonist in this area.Yes, because Amazon Prime Video has just arrived in Spain .A landing that takes place only two weeks away that of HBO, which culminates in a 2016 sown of changes.But, what exactly does it consist of? What advantages and disadvantages does it have compared to the "of its kind"? WHAT AMAZON PRIME VIDEO OFFERS The type, quality and quantity of movies and series offered by the service will be key when determining your success.A catalog a priori smaller than that of HBO and Netflix, but in which we find titles like Seinfield , Into...

What we know and what we suspect in the new Facebook algorithm change

"In my time, we read the newspaper in Facebook ".By 2020, nostalgia has taken over billions of people.In its memory, 2018, when Facebook stopped being Facebook to become Facebook again.Paraiso of engagement for brands and media, land paid for clickbaits and fake news, the social network of Mark Zuckerberg has given a rudder to his algorithm. He wants to return to his origins .And this is what will happen. Related If something goes well, to change it.40.653 million dollars entered in 2017.More than 2.100 million active users per month, a quarter of the world's population.But Zuckerberg is not one of those, of which they are.Want a Facebook with more social connections between people and less presence of brands and media .And what do your users want? Nearly two-thirds of American adults consume news on social networks.More than half do so on their Facebook walls.Pew Research Center data points to a clear trend: Facebook is becoming a media platform.54% of Facebook u...

No kidding: selfitis exists and can be a problem

Sometimes one thinks that social networks were created to share photos of faces putting on little bones and images of dishes overflowing with appetizing foods or, better, of faces putting little bones in front of plates overflowing with appetizing foods in the same shot.is to see faces, faces, faces...all of them smiling, as if looking at the smartphone mirror was the height of happiness.And it does not seem that there are so many beautiful and happy people, or maybe yes, that you go Namely.What envy. Well, what we're going to do: Janarthanan Balakrishnan psychologists from the Thiagarajar School of Management in India; and Mark D.Griffiths, of the Nottingham Trent University, in the United Kingdom, have published an article in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction entitled 'A study on' Selfitis', which names this mania of going around the world taking pictures of oneself, as if beyond our curls the world had been destroyed by that meteorite th...

Twitter shows the best of ourselves (it wasn't always going to be the worst)

In the era of social networks, accustomed to interact daily with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google or WhatsApp, we forget that these tools are phenomenal in the History of Humanity capable of mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in very different geographical locations in a matter of hours or even minutes. Already in the past, Twitter has asserted its more social dimension to mobilize people, companies or organizations and also, from a broader perspective, feelings of solidarity and support or also of rejection and repulses towards causes with an important mediatic impact.Recently, Twitter was once again the engine of solidarity after Dortmund's explosions as the Borussia Dortmund team bus passed on its way to the local stadium on the occasion of the Champions League match between the Borussia and the Monaco. These explosions did not have the devastating effect that they could have caused , so that everything remained in a major social commotion at international lev...

Most apps for children violate your privacy

Do you know if apps with which children enjoy their safety? A team of researchers from the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) of the University of Berkeley has studied compliance with the Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in these mobile applications for the little ones, through a scalable dynamic analysis that allows the automatic evaluation of privacy behaviors of Android apps. After studying 5,855 applications aimed at children, the research concludes that most of these apps, 57%, violate the privacy of their users mainly due to the use of data by third parties. apps for children and privacy Although many apps offer options in their configuration to respect the federal law that protects minors in the United States, by disabling tracking, their results suggest that a majority of applications either do not use these options or propagate them in wrong way. In addition, researchers believe that 19% of apps for children send user IDs to third parties to show ...

Are social networks damaging democracy?

The revelations according to which Russian agents inserted ads on Facebook that tried to influence the 2016 US elections raise a disturbing question: is Facebook bad for democracy? As an expert in the social and political repercussions of technology, I think that the problem is not exclusively from Facebook, but that it is much broader: Social networks are weakening some of the conditions that have historically enabled the existence of national states democratic. I understand that it is a dramatic statement, and I do not expect anyone to believe it immediately, but considering that almost half of all potential voters received false news promoted by the Russians in Facebook is an argument that must be debated. Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina-Charlotte How we create a shared reality Let's start with two concepts: the "imagined community" and the "bubble filter". ...

This is how visual challenges star in some of the most viral content

Constantly, we all receive in our mail, our WhatsApp or our Facebook account, games that try to test our ingenuity, imagination or visual skill.There are a thousand types, more fun or darker.But they have one thing in common: we cannot avoid trying them and see if we are able to solve them .This is how the visual challenges star in some of the most viral content of the network. Visual challenges, why are we crazy? The visual challenges are games.So, they attend to this playful and fun part that people have no choice but to feed from time to time.They are pure and hard entertainment, with no more pretensions, and that desire to Having fun represents one of the main features that are sought when surfing the Internet . Another of the qualities for which they succeed is because they challenge the mind directly.Human beings love that feeling of feeling a little troubled, somewhat lost, but convinced that there is a solution to that enigma to which, sooner or later, it will come.Rathe...

Network One Online

Search This Blog