Is the Yahoo, Google, Facebook filter bubble damaging our creativity?

A couple of weeks ago I watched a really inspiring TED talk from Eli Pariser titled ‘Beware the Online Filter Bubble’ – I breathed a huge sigh of relief and thought ‘finally someone else that sees through the smoke of the personalized world’.

I’m not in anyway against personalized content, I have used it in projects myself and in a lot of cases (if used correctly) it invaluably enriches experiences online and offline. However, I am a little wary that in some cases we are slowly being cut off from our informational 5-a-day and in the long run this could be detrimental to our creativity.

Here’s a couple of quotes from the people in power to get your brain lubed up, is this really what we want?:

“A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa” – Mark Zuckerberg, Facbook

“It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not, in some sense, been tailored for them” – Eric Schmidt, Google

A Balanced Informational Diet

Like nutrition, to grow as rounded healthy individuals we need nourishment from many different sources. Like we need to balance our diet between vegetables and desserts, we need to expose our minds to things in the world that are shocking, challenging, exciting, disturbing and inspiring.

For example, only eating one type of food is bad for you. Even if it’s pineapples. As yummy and healthy as they are, eventually you’re going to develop some deficiencies if all you eat is pineapple. So what do you think will happen if Google, Yahoo and Facebook are all feeding you only pineapples and nothing else? 

A Tunnel Full Of Mirrors

Content based on content that you’re already looking at – you end up in a loop of only one kind of informational nourishment. It’s like when you hold a mirror in front of another mirror to create a never ending tunnel. Google, Yahoo and Facebook are projecting reflections of ourselves, back on to ourselves. Instead of giving us content that challenges our morals and opinions to create new trains of thought and ideas, we are in danger of constantly reaffirming our own opinions with similar opinions, just from other sources.

How This Will Effect True Innovation

The internet is our greatest tool. It’s a research trip to ancient Egypt when you have no funding, it’s a trip back in time to the mesozoic era until we can invent time machines, it’s a university course in design when you don’t have enough money to go back to school. Most of all, it’s a piece of social technology that allows ideas to spread faster and further than ever before. It allows you to implant a thought from your mind, into the mind of someone else and alter the way they think forever.

Creativity is the greatest tool I have. But I don’t come up with new ideas by reading or watching things that I already know about. New ideas appear when researching areas I know nothing about. The greatest feeling is when two completely unrelated areas of knowledge and experience suddenly collide in your mind. It’s the true ‘lightbulb moment’. The birth of something truly innovative.

So if the internet is most peoples first choice research tool, how are we supposed to encourage more of these ‘lightbulb moments’ if we’re always surrounded by familiar content? I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this, so if you have an opinion please leave a comment. Maybe you’ll change the way I think forever.

**Free Stuff Alert**

Read this free e-book on ‘The Medici Effect’ to understand more about cross-sections of global culture colliding to create the Renaissance.

If you had to walk around in your underwear would it stop you eating junk food?

This is a question I’m experimenting with right now.

If everyone could see the bits of me that I don’t like, would that be enough motivation to make me eat healthier or do more exercise?

This morning I was stood in front of the mirror in my underwear and thought ‘I wish I hadn’t eaten that cinnamon bun for breakfast’ – and in an instant there it was. Cause and effect. If I eat crap, I get wobbly bits I don’t like. But most of the time the effect is disguised by clothing so no-one can see it. And because no-one can see it I don’t do anything about it. So I decided to spend the rest of the day in my underwear, seeing if it effected the way I chose my food.

And it did. This post is my analysis of why I think it worked and could it work for the rest of the world?

*Science Warning* Just so you know, I’m not a scientist. Just someone with who gets enjoyment from sciencey-type-human-behaviour-type things.

1 year old thinks a magazine a broken iPad

Having been born in 1985, and pretty much known the internet since being about 11 years old, I have always considered myself to be a Digital Native.

Raised in a time when the World Wide Web and digital technology have had their biggest boom, all of my teen and adult life has been spent online.

I remember the days when only one of my friends could afford a computer so we’d all gather around their house, listen to the screech of the dial-up modem and talk to boys from across the globe on Teen Chat*.

But no matter how many friends I have on Facebook, how many devices I have in ‘the cloud’, whether or not I can make Siri Tweet for me, it doesn’t matter that I’m part of a generation that shares more data weekly than Hubble processed in the 1st 20 years because, I’m not really a Digital Native. I’m about 10 years too early. However, naturally assuming you can pinch-adjust the sizes of images on the pages of magazines before you can even say the word ‘iPad’ definitely gets you in the club.

Old Fuddy-Duddy Warning: If you’re born before 1995, it will make you feel old.

* If any of you remember this website, in hindsight, don’t you think it was was really creepy how many times you’d enter a chatroom and be asked if you wanted cyber? – thank goodness for internet security now-a-days.

Source Plug: The video was originally found on Buzzfeed.com

Hand dryers – why do they even still exist?

This is a conundrum that has puzzled me all of my public-washroom-using life. As I leave the washroom with soggy hands and a feeling of disappointment in hand dryer designers everywhere, I wonder ‘why do hand dryers even exist…they’re shit.’

After years of inadequacy I have finally adopted the mentality of ‘just wipe your hands on your pants and be done with it’.

For years, millions of people across the world have been using their own clothing to finish off the job of crappy hand dryers. Where else in product development would we happily accept such tardiness? Would you buy a kettle that only boiled your water to 56°C? No, you’d take it back and complain it doesn’t do it’s job. So why do people keep buying hand dryers for washrooms and then offering hand towels as well?

I think the whole debate is being looked at backwards, this is what we need to do: Stop trying to prove that hand dryers are better for the environment and just concentrate on making paper towels more sustainable.

* To see how we can make paper towels more sustainable just skip right to the end of my rationally laid out, scientific rant.

The mind rape helmet

If ever Dragons Den needed an invention this is it, right here.

The Mind Rape Helmet. (to prevent mind rape, not encourage it)

To help you understand a little of what I’m referring to, here’s a quote from my favourite moral teacher – Stan, from American Dad.

Stan talking to Francine: “So, what do you think of your new car? Do you love it? This is the Phallus. No, it’s the Phallus ES. Felix said it was the last one on the lot. I had to act fast or this other guy was totally going to buy it. Son of a bitch! He mind–raped me!” *

I find that this unapproved penetration of the mind happens to me quite a bit. Most of the time I don’t even realise that I’ve bought something until I leave the shop with more bags than I entered with. Recently, even my own mind has been trying to double bluff me. Putting the newly bought items into bags that I already have with me so that i don’t realise until I get home. Then it’s too late.

It’s not me. It’s them. They made me do it.

I’ve been doing some thinking. And in an effort diffuse the responsibility for my actions on to someone else, I have manufactured a bunch stratagies that retail assistants (the good ones) execute with military precision on unsuspecting minds.

This is how I get talked into buying things that I don’t need, or really even want.

         – They tell me it’s fashionable. This one I’m slightly ashamed of. I’ll profess to the bitter end about how I’m not influenced by fashion and that I do my own thing, but as soon as anyone shows any interest in anything I’m doing, wearing, eating or reading, I love it. Inside there is a small, but very loud, part of me that likes being the popular one with the cool new shiny things. And I know I’m not the only one.

        – Apparently it’s better than what I have now. This feeds off the 1st one and our need to satisfy some kind of internal or external worth. Whether it’s seeking the gratification of others or appeasing your own moral compass, this one will always get you –  even if you live in a hemp box in a forest and eat leaves. If someone came along and told you they had a new species of leaf that contained all the nutrients you needed and when you pooed a tree grew – you’d buy them.

       – They convince me I’m richer than I think (this last one I blame Scotia Bank for). They say things like ‘if you didn’t buy a coffee everyday for the next week you’d save $25. That’s more than this book costs.’ It’s not that I’m actually richer than I think, it’s that I have the ability to compartmentalize my finances and temporarily, in my mind, re-prioritize coffee money to book money – then I’ll go buy a coffee and sit and read my book.

I believe that retail assistants across the nation are the secret key of successful marketing – and they don’t even know it. So I’m warning you all. So that when you’re mind raped you can have some comfort in thinking ‘well at least I know how they did it’.

*I totally tried, for like 20 minuets, to find a video clip on YouTube so you didn’t have to strain you eyes and read words, but I couldn’t find one, sorry. I’m sure through the power of imagination, you’ll get the humour.

*Stolen image* I found this awesome visual representation on gbfans.com