While listening to the podcast I began thinking about just how much of what I view online is a result of algorithms and machine learning. I don’t think, though, that algorithms are always bad. For example, I’ve been on Tiktok, Twitter, and Instagram long enough to where I’ve interacted with enough of the rights posts so that my feeds generally only include things that I’m genuinely interested in, with the exception of some ads and whatever branches of new content get snuck in. I do a lot of hiking, so I like when I see hikes and hike-related content pop up in my feed. I selectively choose to interact with those things that I like in hopes that the algorithms will provide me with similar content. I do think that algorithms can, however, be very dangerous or harmful when scrolling with the wrong mindset or lack of education on a subject. This is why I think that social media is very problematic for children and young people. Without prior knowledge of a subject, it can be very easy to believe something that you haven’t heard of before. If those initial experiences can spiral out of control and be difficult to change a mindset if a foundation has been built upon it. There isn’t a doubt that there is harmful content on every social platform, but I think we also have to be careful with censoring. I’m under the belief that censoring is fine in the case of children, as they have less critical thinking skills and experiences to relate things to, but I think harmful/negative content can also provide insight into how biases are created and why people think the things that they do and that censorship should generally be avoided for those that are not children.

One of the bigger problems with social media is that you’re almost always in an echo chamber, being fed content that you are likely to agree with, making it all the more difficult to change opinions in the future. This is why I see travel as being so important. The best way to learn about a culture or topic is to be immersed in it, ideally as much as possible and from a wide range. By no means, however, is travel a perfect solution to eliminate bias. If you’re going somewhere as a tourist, then you will only be gaining the perspective of a tourist. Oftentimes tourism involves exaggerated aspects of a culture, and limited interactions with locals can lead to further biases if you try to apply them to everyone from that culture. Travel is also inaccessible for many, as it is very expensive and takes up a lot of time. Books and education are other potential solutions, but even then bias is still present.

At the end of the day, there isn’t really anywhere you can go to truly escape bias. I think the best counter-measure to having biases is to listen to as many different opinions as possible before making a decision. Although this is technically an original blog post that I have personally written, I even question myself as to where these thoughts originated from. Sure I may be expressing myself in an original way, but I would wager that 99% of all my thoughts are based on the thoughts, concepts, and ideas of others.