Web tools and social media are our key sources of
information when we make decisions as citizens and consumers. But these
information technologies can mislead us by magnifying social processes that
distort facts and make us act contrary to our own interests – such as buying
property at wildly inflated prices because we are led to believe that everybody
else is.
New research from the University of Copenhagen, which has
just been published in the journal Metaphilosophy,
combines formal philosophy, social psychology, and decision theory to
understand and tackle these phenomena.
An integral part of
our decision processes
“Group behaviour that encourages us to make decisions based
on false beliefs has always existed. However, with the advent of the internet
and social media, this kind of behaviour is more likely to occur than ever, and
on a much larger scale, with possibly severe consequences for the democratic
institutions underpinning the information societies we live in,” says professor
of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen Vincent F. Hendricks.
In the article Infostorms just published in the journal
Metaphilosophy, he and fellow researchers Pelle G. Hansen and Rasmus Rendsvig
analyse a number of social information processes which are enhanced by modern
information technology.
Curiously, an old book entitled Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the 18th Century to the
Present Day, which in 2007 suddenly climbed the Amazon.com bestseller list,
provides a good example of group behaviour set in an online context:
“What generated the huge interest in this long forgotten book
was a scene in the movie Sex and the City in which the main character Carrie
Bradshaw reads a book entitled Love Letters of Great Men – which does not
exist. So, when fans of the movie searched for this book, Amazon's search
engine suggested Love Letters of Great Men and Women instead, which made a lot
of people buy a book they did not want. Then Amazon's computers started pairing
the book with Sex and the City merchandise, and the old book sold in great
numbers," Vincent F. Hendricks points out.
"This is known as an 'informational cascade' in which
otherwise rational individuals base their decisions not only on their own
private information, but also on the actions of those who act before them. The
point is that, in an online context, this can take on massive proportions and
result in actions that miss their intended purpose."
Online discussions
take place in echo chambers
While buying the wrong book does not have serious
consequences for our democratic institutions, it exemplifies, according to
professor Vincent F. Hendricks, what may happen when we give our
decision-making power to information technologies and processes. And he points
to other social phenomena such as 'group polarization' and 'information
selection' which do pose threats to democratic discussion when amplified by
online media.
“In group polarization, which is well-documented by social
psychologists, an entire group may shift to a more radical viewpoint after a
discussion even though the individual group members did not subscribe to this view
prior to the discussion. This happens for a number of reasons - one is that
group members want to represent themselves in a favourable light in the group
by adopting a viewpoint slightly more extreme than the perceived mean.
“In online forums, this well-known phenomenon is made even
more problematic by the fact that discussions take place in settings where
group members are fed only the information that fits their worldview, making
the discussion forum an echo chamber where group members only hear their own
voices,” Vincent F. Hendricks suggests.
Companies such as Google and Facebook have designed
algorithms that are intended to filter away irrelevant information – known as
information selection – so that we are only served content that fits our
clicking history. According to Professor Hendricks this is, from a democratic
perspective, a problem as you may never in your online life encounter views or
arguments that contradict your worldview.
“If we value democratic discussion and deliberation, we
should apply rigorous analysis, from a variety of disciplines, to the workings
of these online social information processes as they become increasingly
influential in our information societies.”
EurekAlert
