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    Mathew Krick
    Aug 29, 2017

    Social Media, Politics, and Confirmation Bias

    Social media has drastically affected the day-to-day lives of people from across the globe, from spreading information to raising awareness of certain causes. However, there are faults that lie within social media platforms, and I believe that our generation should be responsible for maintaining the integrity of information that spreads through social media, whether it be through reporting posts or questioning aspects of posts. We need to ask more questions, and stop accepting things as "truthful" from the moment we see them. Confirmation bias is a significant issue when it comes to discerning between false and true information, and when dealing with politically-inspired posts, it can become even more difficult for some to filter information that may be false yet complements a particular belief.


    Furthermore, I believe that content creators are responsible for ensuring that the experience of social media is as honest as possible for its users; certain social media platforms such as Facebook have algorithms that can calculate the highest interests of its users, leading to greater returning users. While this may be beneficial for Facebook––whose objective is to retain its users and maximize its number of users––there are inherent flaws that must be addressed. Exposing users to the same perspective of information, especially in politics, can lead to a narrow point of view on a topic (which may not be representative of an entire topic at hand), and it creates a competition between media-producing corporations. Information in social media platforms has turned into the subject of this competition––the company that can present information in the most interesting and sometimes controversial manner wins despite the honesty of its products' contents.

    2 comments
    Rachna Shah
    Sep 7, 2017

    That's a really great point that you make. Every time we click on an article or a video on Facebook, we're sent similar articles and videos in our feed, reinforcing our perspectives rather than challenging them with new perspectives.

    0
    Archana Reddy
    Sep 11, 2017

    I completely agree with you Mathew . Its wise to do ur own research by referring to various sites and blogs before jumping to a conclusion based on content created by just one content creator. Half knowledge about a particular thing is really risky . Mostly in social media people post any news they come across many times we get carried away.

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