The Dangerous Trend of Confirmation Bias

Related imageImage result for confirmation biasIn class this week, we are researching and presenting on different theories and ideas as it applies to people's perspectives.  I am researching confirmation bias, and I think there is no better place to research this than in America right now.  First, confirmation bias is the idea that people will look for facts that support their own biases when researching a topic.  Take gun control for example.  Two different people may look at the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School form two years ago, but come up with two totally different conclusions based on the biases they had going into their research.  I think an example like this, which was very prevalent in the weeks after the shooting, is the perfect example of confirmation bias, and America's current thought process as a whole.  It seems like everyone is playing into their confirmation bias in today's culture, instead of actively trying to understand all points of view.  People today are too worried about being right that they sacrifice knowledge for it.  People all over the world, but seemingly more so in America, only care about being with the loudest group, not the group that is correct.  People today praise "individuality" by being exactly like everyone around them, and shaming anyone who isn't.  There is no longer "news," there's Fox and there's CNN.  There's no longer "government," there's right and left.  Worst of all, there's no longer "Americans," there's conservatives and liberals.  These words don't mean a difference in ideologies anymore, they are labels that dictate who is "right" and who is "wrong," even though which one is which depends on who you ask.       

Links: https://archinect.com/news/article/150169562/tackling-confirmation-bias-in-the-creative-process
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/11/21/seven-ways-your-mind-can-trick-you/#1c7f159d1f88

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whistleblowers: The Hard Part of "Freedom of Speech"

Image
For the past couple months, and really the last three years but this is just the newest thing, the mainstream news outlets have been showing 24 hour coverage of the Trump-Ukraine hearings.  This started when an unnamed whistleblower, now known but not confirmed as Eric Ciaramella, leaked information regarding President Trump and a conversation he had with representatives from Ukraine.  This sparked the latest in a long line of impeachment queries that have been launched against Trump since even before he was sworn in as president; and, as the evidence has been flushed out, it now seems that Ciaramella never had any firsthand knowledge of the claimed incident.  While this is a bad example, it is an example nonetheless of whistleblowing: the act of alerting the masses and news media of wrongdoing by an official or their administration.  Chelsea Maning, Edward Snowden, and Daniel Ellsberg are names that generally come to mind when people talk about whistleblowing.  These are people
Read more

The Rise of the Computer as a Household Object

Image
  For class this past week, we were divided up into groups and each presented on a form of technology that has changed or helped progress communication.  I chose the Personal Computer.  As I researched all the history of the personal computer, I was reminded how far we've come in the advancement of technology over the past half a century.  People from my generation, myself included, take the fact that we have access to computers and the internet whenever we want it for granted, and doing this research presentation really reminded me of that.  Without going into a full history of the PC, it started out as a glorified calculator.  The idea of a machine   that could send messages, play games, or even just have a color screen was foreign to early PC developers.  It came in pieces that you had to assemble yourself, and when it was complete, it looked like a pile of thrown together parts when compared to todays computers.  But, in a day and age when computers normally took up an
Read more

Google, and The Dangers of Monopolizing Speech

Image
"It's like if you were trying to buy a house, and Google owned the house, and a lot of houses on your block. And they were the buyer's agent and also the seller's agent," said Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. "It would raise questions, certainly."'  This perfectly sums up the idea behind CBS News' article "48 U.S. states launch antitrust investigation into Google."  The article focuses on the lawsuit brought to Google by the attorneys general of all US States, except California and Alabama, as well as the attorneys general of Washington   D.C. and Puerto Rico.  They are investigating weather or not Google has a monopoly on the internet search engine business, and if Google is using this monopoly to push the search results it deems most important.  Google's firm grip on the search engine business leads to them virtually giving the first search result to the highest bidder, as the article explains.  The article highlights
Read more