What do we get for all our media choices?

On the one hand, the Internet gives us access to an infinitely wider set of knowledge and ideas than were available previously. On the other hand, it allows us to find the one channel of thought that most closely matches our own–and never stray from it.

Consider a student growing up in small-town Kansas, 1951. She would be mostly informed by the ideas of people in her town. News of the outside world would come only via the mass media: a few radio stations, a newspaper or two, and the local library. Her interests and relationships would correlate almost exactly with her geography.

This was bad because it meant that she didn’t have much choice in the ideas that she would encounter. This was also bad because it concentrated so much control. Napoleon had a point when he said that “four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”

However, an unintended good side effect of these limited communication channels was that our hypothetical student would also occasionally be exposed to new ideas. Serendipity. Because the mass media is by definition “mass,” it must cater to a large cross section. Thus, on her way to find the Sunday comics, our 1951 student might stumble upon a review of a New York Broadway show. On the radio she might hear an interview with someone of polar-opposite political views and change her mind.

Now consider a student growing up in small-town Kansas in 2011. He can be informed from literally thousands of sources–with an internet connection, our modern-day student can get information and form relationships anywhere in the world. He could get news from Al Jazeera and the BBC. He might discover a technology invented last month in Japan. He could form a deep friendship with a girl in Brazil.

This is good because it means that he has a lot more choice and opportunity; in where he gets his news, in possible career paths, and in possible relationships.

The catch is that while all these things are now possible, they are not what actually happens for most people. The truth is, give people a thousand choices of where to get their news and they’ll find the channel that agrees with them. Paradoxically, access to a thousand more viewpoints has resulted in people being a thousand times less likely to confront new ideas.

The effect is getting stronger. In the 1980’s we moved from having three major network television networks to having hundreds of cable channels. In the 1990’s we got the internet, with tens of thousands of sites—every network, newspaper, and then some. And then in to 2000’s we got blogs, Google, and Facebook. Online we have near complete personalization. In fact, media today struggles to show you exactly what you want to see and tell you what you want to hear.

Now it is you who must struggle to find new ideas and decide for yourself.

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I haven’t read it yet but The Filter Bubble goes in depth on this.

“Why does this matter? Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should ‘jiggle their synapses a bit’ by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.” How to train the aging brain.

Image from Matt Ulrich