Burning the Bubble

Over the past few months two hurricanes have hit our country. Hurricane Harvey pouring it’s wrath onto Houston and the surrounding areas, and then Hurricane Irma hitting florida leaving millions of people without power and stranded because of flooded homes. The storms had devastating effects on our country and it seemed that they were the only topics that the news media would cover. People all across the country knew about the devastation in the south but knew very little about what was happening in the northern parts of our country. While the south was flooding the north was, and still is, burning. Although many lives may be in danger due to poor air quality, low visibility, and homes may be in the way of the fires there has been very little news coverage over the fires and I believe that the reason for the low coverage can be brought back to the filter bubble. The filter bubble sorts out information and products that it believes is not useful or does not apply to it’s user, it essentially puts its user into there own little box in which they only hear information that they agree with. And in relation to the fires the general public is not interested in parts of the U.S. that have low population and that doesn’t affect themselves. This way of thinking could be the downfall of the U.S. because the population only hears what they want to hear and not necessarily what they need to hear. Large corporations will buy the consumer’s information so that they can make products and sponsor ads that are tailor made for the people who fit in their own boxes and unfortunately for Montana, a state being greatly affected by the fires, it is difficult for the general public to be informed and know if they need help it can be difficult for people to find help without public support. Montana even declared a state of emergency to get help from the government to control the fires. I stress the point of the fires to exemplify how a poorly informed public can have consequences. Now that we now know the problem we must ask ourselves how can we fix it? This starts with popping the filter bubble that controls what we see on the internet. Corporations that feed consumers more of what they want and what they have already seen could change their format and supply consumers with important happenings in the world local, abroad, and what they would likely click on. We could give control back to the consumer and make greater connections to the world wide web, people could be informed and know about happenings all the way round the world. All it takes is knowledge and awareness of what is keeping society Ill informed in order to make a big difference in how the public views the internet.