3 ms·

One of my favourite part of this whole thing is seeing just how little my friendship group understand how much FB/Twitter are self-selecting echochambers. My f

by alva 10y ago

One of my favourite part of this whole thing is seeing just how little my friendship group understand how much FB/Twitter are self-selecting echochambers. My feeds are full of people who just absolutely cannot believe that other people hold "wrong opinions".

hueving 10y ago
I think this is one of the major reasons for our awful political discourse now. Everyone self-selects into echo chambers and it gets so bad that they can't even fathom how someone could disagree with them as they pass around strawman memes of 'the wrong side'.
- insickness 10y ago
  Then at the end of the day, you must perceive the opposing side as inherently bad in some way. It's amazing how so few people can remain friends with people who have differing viewpoints.
  - ars 10y ago
    Never mind friends. I would settle for simply realizing that the other person has a viewpoint is different from yours, and yet perfectly reasonable. Anytime you see calls for "sanity" or the like you know the person is completely incapable of seeing something from another point of view. I've started to use it as a code word for "don't listen to this person".
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    Must? http://www.usnews.com/cmsmedia/a5/17ab3ad562e0a695610defe0010be6/10344FE_PR_090401pastpresent_reagantip.jpg http://www.usnews.com/cmsmedia/a5/17ab3ad562e0a695610defe001...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
chjohasbrouck 10y ago
This is very true, and something I didn't even realize until I entered a period of life in which I'm simply too busy to participate in social media. If something went viral, I used to take that as a signal or indicator of how the majority of people think. Now when something goes viral, I think, "that's roughly how a lot of men and almost as many women, age 13 to 30, who are comfortable aligning with that particular opinion publicly, think." Then I started considering what that might mean for television, movies, print, etc. I always knew that media was skewed in favor of attracting the youngest audiences, because they're more valuable to advertisers. Now I'm also considering that maybe those forms of media are also skewed in favor of the type of person who tends to watch a lot of television, go to a lot of movies, buy a lot of magazines, etc. I used to think everyone did that, now I know a lot of people do it far less than others. Daytime television, for example, is full of advertisements for private colleges that exist mostly just to take your SSN so they can pocket federal loan money and list you as the debtor. That's because people who watch daytime television tend to be uneducated and unemployed. Daytime television is nothing close to a cross-section of humanity. It's content engineered to appeal mostly to people who don't go to school and don't work. Now, what kind of people tend to watch primetime television? Or listen to terrestrial radio? Or buy a magazine at an airport? As a result of media producers learning more about their audiences, pretty much every form of media eventually becomes an echo chamber.
- eru 10y ago
  That's why it's entertaining to look at the ads in the Economist.
  - chjohasbrouck 10y ago
    The first time I read it I was amazed at how unaffordable everything was. But Bill Gates has said he reads every issue of The Economist from cover to cover, so they definitely know their audience. They'll be in the black as long as they can sell him and Richard Branson one Gulfstream every 5 years.
FunctionalMan 10y ago
The forum we're in is the worst echo chamber of all.
evanpw 10y ago
Not just that, but there are lots of people who honestly believe that no one does hold a different opinion. They attribute a failure to enact the policies they support to a conspiracy of vested interests, rather than the fact that a large fraction of country disagrees with them.

by alva 10y ago

hueving 10y ago

I think this is one of the major reasons for our awful political discourse now. Everyone self-selects into echo chambers and it gets so bad that they can't even fathom how someone could disagree with them as they pass around strawman memes of 'the wrong side'.

insickness 10y ago
Then at the end of the day, you must perceive the opposing side as inherently bad in some way. It's amazing how so few people can remain friends with people who have differing viewpoints.
- ars 10y ago
  Never mind friends. I would settle for simply realizing that the other person has a viewpoint is different from yours, and yet perfectly reasonable. Anytime you see calls for "sanity" or the like you know the person is completely incapable of seeing something from another point of view. I've started to use it as a code word for "don't listen to this person".
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  Must? http://www.usnews.com/cmsmedia/a5/17ab3ad562e0a695610defe0010be6/10344FE_PR_090401pastpresent_reagantip.jpg http://www.usnews.com/cmsmedia/a5/17ab3ad562e0a695610defe001...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

chjohasbrouck 10y ago

This is very true, and something I didn't even realize until I entered a period of life in which I'm simply too busy to participate in social media. If something went viral, I used to take that as a signal or indicator of how the majority of people think. Now when something goes viral, I think, "that's roughly how a lot of men and almost as many women, age 13 to 30, who are comfortable aligning with that particular opinion publicly, think." Then I started considering what that might mean for television, movies, print, etc. I always knew that media was skewed in favor of attracting the youngest audiences, because they're more valuable to advertisers. Now I'm also considering that maybe those forms of media are also skewed in favor of the type of person who tends to watch a lot of television, go to a lot of movies, buy a lot of magazines, etc. I used to think everyone did that, now I know a lot of people do it far less than others. Daytime television, for example, is full of advertisements for private colleges that exist mostly just to take your SSN so they can pocket federal loan money and list you as the debtor. That's because people who watch daytime television tend to be uneducated and unemployed. Daytime television is nothing close to a cross-section of humanity. It's content engineered to appeal mostly to people who don't go to school and don't work. Now, what kind of people tend to watch primetime television? Or listen to terrestrial radio? Or buy a magazine at an airport? As a result of media producers learning more about their audiences, pretty much every form of media eventually becomes an echo chamber.

eru 10y ago
That's why it's entertaining to look at the ads in the Economist.
- chjohasbrouck 10y ago
  The first time I read it I was amazed at how unaffordable everything was. But Bill Gates has said he reads every issue of The Economist from cover to cover, so they definitely know their audience. They'll be in the black as long as they can sell him and Richard Branson one Gulfstream every 5 years.

FunctionalMan 10y ago

The forum we're in is the worst echo chamber of all.

evanpw 10y ago

Not just that, but there are lots of people who honestly believe that no one does hold a different opinion. They attribute a failure to enact the policies they support to a conspiracy of vested interests, rather than the fact that a large fraction of country disagrees with them.