The Filter Bubble prevents American citizens from
completing their civic duties, and prevents the nation from progressing into the future. A filter bubble is the term used to describe the way in which companies, such as search engines or media outlets, tailor the information provided to each individual user in order to make their experience more enjoyable. Catering to every person may appear, at first, to be convenient, but some very serious issues arise. People become uninformed about different perspectives regarding both domestic and international issues. They lose the ability to understand the way in which the other side is thinking. In our democracy it is each citizen’s responsibility to stay informed so that they can make the right decisions for our nation.
If people are unable to see major issues facing their community, how can they possibly make a decision that will solve it? People need to know where their community, and our nation, should be focused. Some issues are more pressing than others, and in order to dictate which ones should be solved first all of them need to be understood. The way in which the problem is solved is also changed by the filter bubble. Both sides will present solutions, but if they are not working together a compromise will never be met ultimately leaving the problem unsolved. There are several issues today that provide examples of this. Currently our nation is debating over a government-funded healthcare system. Neither side is willing to hear the others perspective. A lot of talking is happening, but no one seems to be saying anything beneficial. If both sides understood each other and worked together a compromise would occur much faster.
The Filter Bubble is polarizing this nation’s political parties creating a massive rift in the population. History has shown us time and time again that having two extremely different radical viewpoints leads to disaster. In Weimar Germany the communist left and the conservative NSDAP party fought, in some cases to the death, over who should control the government. Power struggles occur and one side ends up being oppressed just like in Weimar Germany.
When the conservatives seized power being a member of the left party became illegal with punishments as severe as death. Major rifts lead to internal conflict and the potential demise of our way of life completely. Regardless of how strong our government is we could succumb to the same fate. For the sake of our democracy we need to realize they don’t have to agree solely with one side. They are allowed to agree with differing parties on different issues.Very few fall into just conservative or liberal and neither side objectively better than the other.
The ability of the people to thoroughly understand certain situations is impaired by the filter bubble. Citizens only see the good aspects of the political party they align themselves with. Without recognizing the faults of their campaigns/candidates there is no way to improve. If they only see the victories they will be shocked when they lose an election. In our most recent presidential election most democrats didn’t believe the republican candidate would win because they only heard negative things about him and only heard the positive aspects of their candidate. Many people were outraged by the loss, and it may have caused some to lose faith in democracy completely. When people lose faith in voting they stop doing it, causing the collapse of democracy completely.
In order to maintain our government and way of life, it is essential that we rid ourselves of the filter bubble. We need to stay informed on global and local issues, even those that don’t interest us as much, so we can make the right decisions.
Most importantly we need to be able to understand and accept the other side’s argument, and realize that we don’t have to just fall on one end of the political spectrum.
21st Century Citizenship 