How to deal with misinformation, confirmation bias and algorithms?
Why did I write this article?
There is something seriously broken with the way our society shares information these days. Social media is a fast-moving and constant flood of opinions and news cycle. There is so much information shared so quickly, that you may only catch the headlines or a brief excerpt from a text or an eye catching infographic.
You retain a small percentage of this information, enough to maybe quote a line or two, but did you really agree with and understand the depth of the conversation around that topic?
This isn’t your fault. We are bombarded on a daily basis with an algorithm that tunes into our existing beliefs and shares more information that confirms it. This algorithm plays off of what is called a confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias will cement what you already think to be true as concrete facts
Kendra Cherry from ‘A Very Well Mind’ writes
“A confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms your previously existing beliefs or biases.”
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795024
Algorithms know you better than you know yourself
Social media companies will actually argue that their algorithms are not particularly manipulative, they simply determine what we like, believe, search for, and show us more of the same. So in theory, they are giving us what we want. This argument is flawed.
Maybe it’s that whole saying of “have your cake and eat it too”. Sounds good in theory, feels like a good idea, but when you get all the cake, are you truly happy with it? Do you know what to do with it? What if you wanted to try chips or a bagel, but all you were ever given was cake. Would you still be happy with the cake?
If you bought into the above metaphor, I have to confess. I made it up in the space of about 5 minutes. I did no research to verify that it’s a logical theory. But it sounds good, and you might be able to apply context to it from your own experiences to validate it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/12/congress-regulate-facebook-algorithm/
If we’re not careful, and not pushing further than just a key headline or turn of phrase that makes its way into our social media streams, it will be what keeps us in a limited mindset and feeling trapped.
I feel trapped sometimes. Like a cycle, some things just keep playing like a feedback loop that flows back over itself. Over and over.
You could put 2 articles of information side by side, one factual, one misinformation - and depending on someone’s existing biases, they will steer towards believing the one that reaffirms what they already believe. This is good, if they believe the factual article, but misinformation is crafted and executed in a completely manipulative way, to come across convincing and evidential, it’s not until you pierce the surface and dig a bit deeper that you realise there is no substance to it.
Even this article that I’m writing, if you know me you probably have pre-existing opinions of me, and maybe what beliefs and values I hold. Then you will decide quickly whether or not you believe what I’m saying.
Brain chemistry and feedback loops
Confirmation bias is a hard cycle to break through. But I am trying to do it in my own life and I would love to help others do the same. I have actually deleted some of my social media apps to keep from scrolling and receiving too much information. I know that my brain can’t handle it.
I’ve been over the years diagnosed with ADHD (back then it was just called ADD) and anxiety. These conditions have made me feel less than, made me feel out of control at times and not able to function like the rest of society seems to be able to do.
If you saw me now you probably wouldn’t be able to detect these conditions unless you took a good hard look. I have learned many coping mechanisms over the years to help assimilate myself as best as I can with the world around me. I have found different pathways to learning because my mind did not cope with the way our school system was structured.
I have to keep reassuring myself of what I know to be true. Therein lies THE problem. If I continued to limit my beliefs to what I already know and understand, without exploring other points of view I would remain limited. But entertaining thoughts that are outside my realm of comfort is scary for me. It can carry me away.
So what I have to do is limit myself to some degree, while maintaining an open mind, while protecting my mind all at the same time. But how???
It’s complex, it’s not straightforward and I’m certainly not getting it right day to day.
Bad conversations
I’m going to put something in this article about a conversation I had with a friend recently, but I will keep them anonymous for their privacy. This was not a good conversation. It was a build up of emotion that took place inside me because of information they were sharing with me that I had no interest in entertaining. And the reason for that is that it was mostly information that I had already encountered in the past and knew enough about to be confident that it was untrue and misinformation.
However, this person presented me with another article of information that I refused to look into again because of the previous information they had shared with me. My bias towards the previously shared information was clear and absolutely affected my ability to recognise that this was a totally different topic, and a piece of information that I hadn’t explored much at all in my life. I had never researched this and knew nothing about it. But I flat out refused to entertain this persons new concern, because of my bias.
I reality checked myself afterwards and did look into it, but I could still feel my bias pulling at my fibres. I tried to be unobjective in my search, I just wanted to look for the facts.
It’s not perfect, but I think that we need to do more of this. Because being reactive and shutting off/closing out ideas because it’s something we haven’t previously believed or entertained can inflame a situation and add fuel to an unnecessary fire.
Some steps we should collectively take to help combat this phenomenon:
- Step Back and breath -
If at first our reaction is to resist and deflect from information that doesn’t serve us, we need to take a step back. - Look for the facts -
Search on Google scholar for credible peer-reviewed articles. Sometimes these are hard to access if you aren’t part of a school that subscribes to them. You can sometimes pay $25-$30 for one pdf article. So if you have friends who can access it for you, get them to send you a copy of the pdf. - Argue -
This might seem like an odd step to throw into a self-help guide, but seriously, sometimes having a healthy debate with someone who doesn’t believe the same things as you, might improve your understanding of each other. It can help you define boundaries, give each other a turn to explain how and why you’ve come to the conclusions you’ve held and hopefully find some middle ground.
Something that Ru Paul taught me, “It’s not the word itself, but the intention behind the word." If it is coming from a place of love, and wanting to understand one another, there isn’t any reason you can’t have disagreements and have them be amicable. - Move forward - We fall short, we recognise our failings and we can recondition ourselves to do better. Try not to judge people too harshly for having opposing views, but try and figure out how they got there. And check how you arrived at your own conclusions.
Lastly I’ll leave you with a good article I found for training your brain to think critically:
https://www.lifehack.org/397673/how-to-expand-your-mind
Decide for yourself if you think this information and everything I’ve shared here, are worthy pieces of information.
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