OPINION: One of the best things about social media – whether you prefer Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or some platform I haven’t heard of yet – is that it’s personalised.
The people, pages and topics you see are either those that you’ve selected, or that the platform has selected for you.
It’s also one of the worst things about social media – possibly the very worst. Unlike, say, a newspaper or radio station, the world view you get from your social media feeds is just for you. It reflects your interests, as well as your biases. It serves up opinions and news stories from people just like you.
If you’re not careful, it can be easy to believe that everyone thinks just like you do – because opinions just like yours are all you’re seeing online.
It’s not hard to see the consequences of this. Three elections ago, I remember seeing people genuinely surprised that National won because, “no one supports John Key.” While that was probably true in their suburbs and their self-selected Facebook feeds, the polls told a different story.
Spend enough time scrolling through your own Facebook feed and it can be easy to believe that everyone despises Jacinda Ardern. Or Judith Collins. Or that guy who made his daughter teach herself to open a can of beans.
In the United States, the digital tribalism runs even deeper. Political parties and news organisations capitalise on this, serving stories and ads that further reinforce the belief that “everyone thinks like me”.
Hardly surprising, then, that more than a few Republicans believe the recent election was stolen rather than won.
Like most social media issues, the idea of a self-selected bubble isn’t completely new, or confined to social media. In the US, right-leaning viewers will find their world view reinforced on Fox News, while more liberal listeners will be at home on PBS. In the UK, readers have long been able to choose a daily newspaper that reflects their politics.
As Billy Bragg pointed out in his 1983 song It Says Here: “When you wake up to the fact that your paper is Tory, just remember, there are two sides to every story.”
Here in New Zealand, our smaller media market has meant newspapers and TV stations (radio stations not so much) have had to play something of a straighter bat.
Newspapers and TV, though, aren’t where we’re spending our time. Comprehensive research from NZ On Air last year showed time spent watching YouTube overtaking broadcast TV for the first time, as daily reach of all traditional media continued to decline.
Digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are increasingly the first place we turn for news and opinion. The world view that they present matters.
So how do we make sure that picture isn’t just a reflection of our own interests and prejudices?
The short answer is that we can’t. Personalisation is baked into social media platforms. They rely on it for targeting advertising so it’s not going away.
We can be aware of that, though. We can keep reminding ourselves that when we see a story in our feeds it’s there because we’re likely to respond to it – not because it’s worthy, important or even true.
The second step is a bit harder, but it’s one I’ve been trying to do since joining Twitter a few years back. I call it nose-to-tail tweeting.
Rather than just follow people I like and agree with, I try to also follow people with different views and backgrounds. I know, of course, that Twitter itself will never be a decent reflection of society, but following people with different takes on the world will at least broaden my view of it.
Sometimes this just means following people I’m unlikely to meet or hear from otherwise. And sometimes, as the nose-to-tail name implies, it means following arseholes.
And I do. So every day, amongst the tweets about things I’m into (aeroplanes and food, basically) I see tweets from bigots, racists, homophobes, sexists, political extremists of all varieties and even people who prefer Marmite to Vegemite.
I don’t like them or agree with them. But the alternative is to create my own perfect digital world, where arseholes and their views don’t exist, and everyone shares my opinions, biases and politics.
That’s not real, and it’s not healthy. Shutting people out from your digital world might make them invisible, but it doesn’t make them any less real.
A social media feed featuring ideas you disagree with – or even despise – might not be as comforting or enjoyable as your current one. So if you’re happy to pay for bliss with ignorance, that’s your choice.
For me, though, if being challenged, offended and sometimes disgusted is the price of getting a glimpse of the world outside my bubble, I’ll pay it.