Module 5 Blog Post

 This week? Shew. There was a lot to take in. 

    I don't think I've ever read, heard, or said the phrase, "Fake News" so much in my life until this week! I'm begining to feel a lot like Donald Trump at this point! Fake news is a real thing (ha!) and it can cause unnecessary drama and bias and a "head in the sand" mentality to arise. Some people just don't want to take the time to do any research to combat fake news though, so even though it's always been around, it's definitely more prevalent in the days of the internet. 

Filter bubbles? Say what? I know about filters and algorithms but I have never thought outside the box to realize that search results are also filtered to my tastes as well and that I'm missing half the internet in a search result because I use the same devices and accounts to view things that I do like. I have decided to use my extra computer at home to do some testing on this for a while. I'm going to wipe it clean, set up some new email accounts and strictly use it for Google searches about current events for a while and compare it to the search results that I get from the same search on my phone. I'm just blown away that there are things I don't know about happening in the world and will never know about simply because an algorithm deems it uninteresting to me. 

Don't get me started on confirmation bias! Some people are so self-serving that no matter what you say, they can flip it around to serve their own agenda, whatever that may be. But not every example of CB is so extreme. We all have confirmation bias to some degree. Are you fully convinced that left handed people are more creative? (yeah, me too!) Every time you see an example of a lefty being creative, you most likely give it more power or acknowledgment than if a right handed person is being creative--because that doesn't feed the narrative, that doesn't confirm what you KNOW to be true, that lefties ARE more creative. (There's no real basis in that claim, by the way, but I'm not convinced that it's not real.) Or what about the boss that has the blinders on? The pet employee who you think is lazy, but the boss swears she's great! Which of you has the confirmation bias? Do both of you? The boss only seems to see all the great things your co-worker does but you can't get past all the lazy things they do. (Really just felt like I called myself out and need to look at a particular co-worker a little differently for a bit...)

And Denzel Washington calling out the news is STILL the highlight of my week.