the W-lister

As the Web has been earning it’s "2.0" status over the years, there’s been a lot of celebration of how it’s bringing us all closer together, bridging those communications gaps once so arduous to cross. People of all different socioeconomic levels, professions, interests, etc. were coming together in common meeting spaces to share ideas and stories. We smashed through the need for mitigating agents who judge and select what messages to pass on to the masses; and the masses were given a voice with which to respond. We could now talk to one another directly, without the constraints of social, professional or other circles we ran in. We were free to to explore the great wide open for ourselves.

Is this what we have now? Is this what we ever had?

One would think that in such a world there would be lessening polarization along religious, political, ethnic, class and other lines. Instead, it feels as if we’re pushing one another farther away, and hunkering deeper into to ideological foxholes.

There is probably some deep-seated human compulsion to gravitate towards those like us, so despite the wide variety of choice available to us on social networks, we glom onto those we know, and onto those who seem familiar. We seek those with similar interests, beliefs and experiences.

One really has to make an effort break their social habits, and connect with someone unfamiliar, outside their comfort zone. It can be a big step leaving a thoughtful comment or question in response to a blog post, tweet, podcast or Facebook status update you don’t agree with, or on a topic you want to learn more about.

It’s easy to troll and give a knee-jerk criticism, but not to actually engage an other person in dialogue about something new, and maybe even offensive to you.

The perceived beauty of social media—and the internet in general—is that it’s a vehicle in which to cross the boundaries of your own knowledge, biases and prejudices, in order to grow. There is limitless information out there, and a wealth of potential teachers, and even friends.

Unfortunately, not as many individuals seemed to take advantage of this opportunity as some might have initially hoped, or at least not as quickly. Instead, folks more or less have been sticking to what, and who, they know.

It can even be argued that things have been moving backward socially as technology advances. In his TED Talk, "Beware of Online Filter Bubbles", Eli Pariser discusses how filters (Those things in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. that suggest certain friends for you and raise specific posts to the top of your news feeds while burying others.) are hastening the rise of the echo chambers we tend to build around ourselves.

Our natural leanings towards those who think like us often manifest in our online presences as collections of friends/contacts saying lots of stuff we tend to agree with, and agreeing with lots of the stuff we say. Filters only strengthen this by figuring out our preferred demographic of friends, topics of articles to read, and the like, and pre-emptively suggesting them to us, or even inserting them right into our information streams, news feeds, lists, etc.

These filters automatically add bricks to the walls of our echo chambers, distancing us from those who are different in significant ways.

The problem is that we don’t learn by simply agreeing with everyone and everything around us. We need to hear dissenting opinions because they force us to constantly re-examine and sharpen our own stances, giving us a better understanding of things. We have to learn how to interact with people who are different from us because that’s what life in the modern world is all about. Otherwise, our thinking becomes stale, and our society brittle. Frankly, we won’t last long like that.

What’s the answer? Oh, if only I knew. Whatever it is, I think it will have to come out of a change in our thinking and behaviour as humans, and not from more change in technology.

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