Have We Been Polarized and Pigeonholed?
– Musings of Dr. Jamie C. Hsu, 9.18.2020
During the lockdown months, we are relying more and more on internet, streaming, online shopping, and various media platforms for our schooling, work, news, socialization, and information flow. Have you noticed an interesting and scary phenomenon? The more we use social media for shopping, newsfeeds and chats, the more we are categorized into various groups. Like rays of light, our complex and sophisticated beings are polarized into simple colors and segments. Our behaviors and habits put us into different pigeonholes of customers and user groups. All this is done without our explicit knowledge or consent. Some unknown data analytics and algorithms do this partitioning and categorizing behind the scenes. Gradually, we are fed the “relevant” advertisements, merchandise, political messages, friend circles, movie suggestions, and personalized newsfeeds. Instead of being independent individuals with broad interests, we are labeled as blue, red, left, right, progressive, conservative, baby-boomer, millennial, casual diner, sophisticated shopper, etc. The list of labels goes on and on. I wonder what kind of “Jamie Hsu” is being described in the hidden world of big data and cloud computing. A very insightful book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (Rosling, 2018) articulates the 10 reasons why our inherent biases toward facts can lead us into very different perspectives. We human beings have tendencies to see gaps, to generalize events, to stir fear, to exaggerate negativity, to assign blame and to simplify things. A good example is the recent forest fires in the West Coast of the US. People are polarized to take either the side of climate change or the side of mismanagement by the state. In reality, the answer might be a combination of climate change, forest management and urban sprawl restrictions. In this era of massive social media and personal data, such intrinsic biases have been used by marketers, news media, political handlers, and pollsters to further nudge us into various pigeonholes. It would be wise for all of us to be aware of the selective information and merchandise that is fed into our pigeonholes. Or better yet, we should try to broaden our reading over a wide spectrum of books, watch different movies, mingle with people of different backgrounds, and shop online for a variety of products. Maybe then we will not be easily polarized and pigeonholed. — Google just announced its Chrome browser will eliminate tracker, because consumers don’t like being followed around the web.
我們是否被分化歸類
–作者 許俊宸博士
-中譯 薛乃綺
在封城期間，我們越來越仰賴網路、串流媒體、線上購物，以及各種的媒體平台，來進行教學、工作、新聞、社交以及資訊流等的獲取。 你是否曾注意到一個有趣但令人恐懼的現象？我們使用社群媒體去購物、獲取新聞、或聊天的次數越多，我們被歸類到相關群組中的次數也就越多。就像光線一樣，本来是複雜且完美的存在，卻被以簡單的顏色進行區隔分化。我們的行為與習性，讓我們陷入了各種不同的客戶及使用者群組的歸類。所有的這些，都是在我們沒有明確的了解或認同的情況下完成的；而某些數據分析和計算方法，就在後台默默進行這種區隔與分類。 慢慢地，我們開始接收到一些相關的廣告、商品、政治訊息、甚至是對於朋友圈、電影、個人化新聞等訊息。我們從擁有廣泛興趣且獨立的個體，被標註成藍色、紅色、左派、右派、先進、保守、嬰兒潮世代、千禧世代、休閒小吃者、奢侈品購物者等。標籤列表被不斷地加在頭上，我不知道在大數據及雲端計算所隱藏的世界裡，正在描述一個什麼樣的“许俊宸”。 一本非常有見地的書，叫做「真確：扭轉十大直覺偏誤」(漢斯．羅斯林，2018年)。闡明了我們對事實的內在偏見，會導致我們進入截然不同觀點的10個原因。 人們喜歡去發現分歧、把事情概擴性解釋、煽動恐懼、誇大負面情緒、交相指責、以及過度簡化事件。一個最佳案例就是近期在美國西岸發生的森林大火。人們分成兩派，要嘛站在氣候變遷這邊、要嘛就說是國家管理不善。事實上，答案可能是氣候變遷、森林管理、以及都會蔓延的約束等綜合原因導致的。 在這個擁有大量社交媒體及個人數據的時代，市場行銷者、新聞媒體者、政治管理者、民意調查者，已經用了這種內在偏見，進一步將我們帶入了各種困境。 對所有的人來說，明智之舉是要了解，把我們歸類的是選擇性的訊息以及商品資訊。所以，我們應該嘗試把閱讀範疇擴大到各式各樣的書籍、觀看不同的電影、與不同背景的人打交道、透過網路購買各類商品等。也許到那個時候，我們就不會如此被輕易地分類規劃。保有一个完全的‘我’。
Google剛宣布它的Chrome瀏覽器將取消網站追蹤器，因為消費者不喜歡 被網路跟蹤—-
