Your online behaviour is turned into data wherever and whenever you're online and is often shared or sold to third parties for profit, your fitness tracker database your exercise, social media database, your friendships and the big tech companies track your search history and location and turns that into data to data that's harvested can be used to personalise your digital searches, services and feeds, the tech companies, advertisers and political parties, use your data to sell you stuff. That stuff might be products, but it might also be ideas. So the onus is on you to make informed decisions about the content you consume.
Personalization means we can be flooded with articles and posts that support our current opinions and perspectives. And we come to assume that everyone thinks like us and we forget that other perspectives exist. We're in a bubble. filter bubbles create echo chambers, where we just hear what we've always heard, and don't open our minds to new ideas. So what can you do?
Firstly, don't always use the same sources for information or news, try different ones. Find out what others use or what experts recommend. read posts and articles by people you disagree with, and learn to manage your privacy better. Don't let a smart world outsmart you.
the digital world is still wonderful. so make the most of it. Above all, explore. be curious. but remember to also be critical, and to be more active in your management of your digital world and life.
