On Filterworld

 

This book confirms a lot of my thinking over the past 20 years where it was all heading. I recall the early days of collaborative filtering during my time as a part-time web designer in the aughts. Back then, most people wanted a web hit counter and a way to give ratings. Before that, boomers and genx didn’t grow up with the ubiquity of ratings, whereas it is a fixture of younger generations. This is something that stood out for me in this book. While older people might be able to care less about filterworld, younger people seem as though couldn’t care more. Or is it we should all care more? Given the stress it puts on our lives, we should try to care less when we can. Filterworld has allowed us to more easily compromise our integrity of intentions of what we really want without computer networks being in the equation.

In the final paragraph, the author states:

"There is no pure form of culture that happens outside of technological influence, nor is there a singular best way to consume culture. we cannot just rid ourselves of algorithmic influence, even if we wanted to, since the technology has already an inexorably shaped our era. but the first step of escaping the algorithms grip is recognizing it. By moving away from the mindset of passive consumption and thinking about a post algorithmic digital ecosystem, we begin to construct that alternative, demonstrating that the influence of algorithms is neither inevitable or permanent."

The distinction for me is whether culture is being pushed at you or you are pulling it. Before the internet, we would have preferences for things and then go out and try to find those things. For me, in the 1970s,  there was nothing that suggested that I go to the Art Institute Of Chicago; it just seemed like a cool thing to do. And that's what started my art and music appreciation. If we're talking about human universals and human behavior, we don't necessarily need recommendations. What you need is one access point, and it doesn't need to be from the internet. But now we can second-guess our own desires by seeing if anyone else has them and abandoning them if they don't. The world goes where the popular conversations are but what if we aren't interested in those conversations?

The author thinks there is a possibility of fixing this but if you get the "followism" virus it isn't likely you'll be doing what you think is interesting.