Let’s face it- we all love to personalize our stuff. The clothes we wear, the cars we drive, our Facebook pages, our mobile phones – everything we can customize we do so to our personal liking. And search engine companies know this. They are working hard to bring you the most relevant search results based on a number of personal factors. As users, these companies have given us the power of the filter- allowing us to sort through information we consider is most important. This information keeps going back to search engines. They continuously decide what content we get to see based on these personalization filters as well as our search habits and other personal information.

Our point of view follows us wherever we go in this technology-driven world. We set our preferences and tailor our media outlets to give us the information we want most. We give out information about ourselves, including our age, location, interests, relatives, etc. to social media sites like Facebook, often connecting to product brands.

All of this personalization may be hurting the diversity of our thinking. According to Eli Pariser in an interview with Mashable, “When websites show us only what we like, we get cut off from the diverse points of view that can enrich our understanding of the world.” Searchers are less likely to find results that do not cater to their online personalities or that challenge their views. The diversity of search results is diminishing, replaced by results that users have already expressed interests in- we are isolating ourselves. This can be a serious issue because we tend to overlook the real problems of the world and focus only on things that are more interesting to us. Our “News Feed” on social sites for example do not usually show us real news; they show us what is happening in our own social communities. We are indeed in “our own little worlds” online. Things like Kim K’s wedding make headlines, not the war on Afghanistan or the fight against Mexican drug cartels- issues that truly affect our futures.

Pariser explains his biggest fear as “important but un-sexy problems- from homelessness to the war in Afghanistan- fall our of view entirely.” What happens when breaking news occurs and we turn to the internet for information? Can our views truly be objective if we are not shown all the information we need when we are only being fed content that reinforces our current opinions or personality? And, will the gap between political parties grow larger as our views are enforced by the content we are fed- and what kinds of implications could this have?

Feel free to share your opinions/concerns in the comments below.