I’ve always been amazed by the amount of information we can access on the internet. My first TED talk I’d like to share is by Tim Berners-Lee; he talks about the amount of people using the internet and constantly updating it to have more current information. The point of the talk is to show the advantages of having an internet that everyone can contribute to. The second TED talk I’d like to share this week is given by Eli Pariser. His talk explains how the internet limits us through online filters. My learning goal is to find out how drastic the filters are and how you can push past them. Be thinking about how different your life wouldbe without the internet.
It amazed me at how large of a response the internet had when it first came out. I have been used to having it around my whole life and it hadn’t occurred to me that it hasn’t always been here. Like when Tim showed the map of people who update road maps on the internet. It seems like a simple thing but was actually very amazing to most people when the internet became common; being able to change how map looks in seconds is a pretty powerful thing.
The thing that most intrigued me about the two talks is the fact that when you type something into Google, not one person will have identical search results. They’re swayed by where you are, what you click on the most, what you click on first, your type of computer and more. It’s shocking to find that sometimes people don’t learn new things simply because they can’t find something new on the internet easily. Search results are favored towards your current interests which creates a problem when it comes to acting on new interests.
The specialized results reminded me of a debate that some of my classmates were having after watching another talk called “Where’s the Learn This Button?” We kept arguing that specialized learning is good when you already know what you want to do and you’re old enough to put that goal into effect. We also came across the idea that specialized learning is not so good when you’re young. If you try to specialize early, you may end up feeling obligated to do the same career your entire life, even if you don’t enjoy it. It would be better if Google had less online filters, that way people can get a variety of information and can decide what they want to do after seeing more than one thing or even have enough information to change jobs later in life if they ever desired.
If you have achieved the learning goal, you should be able to answer these questions. What is an online filter? How does one person's differ from another's and why? How drastic are different people's online filters? What are some ways you can avoid filters and obtain new information?
