Why the ideas we see are not all there is
This piece was co-authored by Nason Maani, and his version is cross-posted here
“You are what you eat” is clearly an oversimplification, but there is a truth to it. We are heavily influenced by what we consume in a physical sense. The same is true of our consumption of information, of ideas, particularly when our attention is in short supply, and competed over in what has been termed the “attention economy”.
It feels there is more information around us than there ever has been, and as a result, one might think, we consume a varied information diet. Perhaps in the morning we scroll through one or two news websites, then perhaps our notifications on a social media platform like Linkedin, X, Facebook, or BlueSky. Maybe we receive a couple of newsletters from Substack, and some “forwarded many times” messages from groups on WhatsApp. Then there are some alerts on our phone from Google or Apple News. After 30-45 minutes, over our morning coffee, it can feel as if we have sampled quite a range of news, work updates, life updates, sports, science, views and ideas from people in the wider world. But what is shaping that information? What biases what we see and read?
The definition of bias in research terms is a systematic error that distorts measurement away from truth. Just like there are innumerable forces that bias accurate measurement, there are also innumerable forces that bias what we think. We do not think it is possible to remove all sources of bias that shape the information we consume. But if we could understand what is biasing the information we consume, we can come to conclusions about the world around us that are clearer and close to truth.
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