Are you biased?

If you're biased, then it's likely you get your information from sources that have a bias.

With regard to politics, I probably am biased.

With regard to climate change, I avoid the politicization and stick to the facts.

But returning to the subject of bias, this Scientific American article gets at the way that biases get reinforced by information sources.


Biases Make People Vulnerable to Misinformation Spread by Social Media

I could have guessed that this was true, but the researchers have undertaken a quantification of how it works.

Two excerpts, and you can follow the links in the first one if you want to find out more:

"The tendency to evaluate information more favorably if it comes from within their own social circles creates “echo chambers” that are ripe for manipulation, either consciously or unintentionally. This helps explain why so many online conversations devolve into “us versus them” confrontations."

Now for the second:

"The third group of biases arises directly from the algorithms used to determine what people see online. Both social media platforms and search engines employ them. These personalization technologies are designed to select only the most engaging and relevant content for each individual user. But in doing so, it may end up reinforcing the cognitive and social biases of users, thus making them even more vulnerable to manipulation."

So, if you're biased, using social media will probably make your biases stronger.  Which contributes to the polarization of our societal debates.  And it's one of the reasons that there are so many issues that are very hard to resolve right now, because that polarization leads people to think that only their way is the right way, and also think that not only is the opponent's way the wrong way, the opponents themselves are basically wrong about everything - which makes them dangerous.  And not suited to be in power.

Do you hear echoes of modernity?

I do.