Following on from the last post about Perception and our senses, I watched this TED talk by Eli Pariser, who informs us about search sites tailoring their results based on data they have collected about our previous searches and meanderings around the web.

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles” | Video on TED.com.

Given what was mentioned in the last post, one can see the potential danger in having a 3rd party present information to us that may cause us to unconciously invoke our personal filters on top of the filtering and sorting the search site is giving us. One can be led to the conclusion that the search results present the most complete picture of what is out on the web as possible, where in fact they are giving us what they think we want to see based on our history.

While this may be a boon in some cases (perhaps many cases, I don’t know), it is a detriment in other cases, as we may want to gather information without this “personalization” that the search company is giving us. It can blind us to information we may, in fact, really want and need in order to be informed, make informed decisions, and so on.

As humans are wont to grasp onto initial meanings for what they perceive, and those meanings are hard to change once set, this can be a vital flaw for anyone conducting research on the web. It feeds our confirmation bias and existing prejudices.

A few modern browsers allow for an “icognito mode” — where the browser doesn’t reveal any history or information about the user. It may be interesting to conduct a side-by-side search to see if, in fact, you are getting different results back.