Confirmation Bias — Social Media Whirpool

If you keep watching (or searching) certain specific news (Ex. news about a political party or a celebrity) then you will keep getting information about those things continuously. This is called confirmation bias and it’s a very dangerous thing.

Food for thought 👇🏽 Read more if you wanna learn about Confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is our natural human tendency to search for, favour, interpret, and recall information that aligns with our existing beliefs or values. This bias unknowingly shapes our decisions and how we see the world around us.

Search engines, YouTube, Twitter, and other social media rely on complex algorithms to determine what content to show you. These algorithms learn your preferences based on factors like:

• ⁠Search terms: What you search for on a search engine.
• ⁠Clicked results/videos: What you click on within search results or your suggested videos feed.
• Watch time: How long you engage with certain types of content (videos, social media posts, etc.).
• ⁠Social interactions: The kinds of accounts you follow, which posts you like, comment on, share, and what discussions you engage in.

How This Plays Out on Different Platforms

• Search Engines: If you primarily click on or read results that express a particular viewpoint, the algorithm will favour similar results in the future. This can make it harder to find balanced information on a topic.
• YouTube: Your recommended videos will skew towards videos with topics and ideologies similar to those you’ve watched and enjoyed before.
• Twitter and other Social Media: Your feed will show more posts from people and accounts who share your viewpoints, along with ads and promoted content tailored to your established preferences.

How to Avoid Confirmation Bias

Here are some strategies to break out of filter bubbles and minimize confirmation bias:

• ⁠Seek out diverse perspectives: Make a conscious effort to search for and read content that presents different angles on a topic. Challenge yourself with viewpoints that go against your own. This exposure can help gain a fuller understanding.
• ⁠Consider the source: Be critical about the origin of information. Is it based on facts or speculation? Does it come from a reputable source? Is it well-researched? Be wary of overly sensational or emotionally charged content.
• ⁠Be curious about opposing viewpoints: Don’t immediately dismiss ideas that counter your own. Instead, consider why someone might hold a particular belief and how they reached that conclusion, even if you ultimately disagree.
• Burst your bubble: Try following social media accounts, news sources, or content creators representing a range of viewpoints.
• Fact-check: Before sharing information or forming strong opinions, use reliable fact-checking websites (https://www.factcheck.org/, https://www.politifact.com/) to verify claims.

Important Notes

• Avoiding confirmation bias takes effort. It requires critical thinking and challenging your own beliefs.
• You won’t suddenly stumble upon “absolute truth”. The goal is to become more aware of your own biases and develop a more comprehensive, balanced understanding of the world.

Biases in the Brain

There are various types of biases in the brain that influence how we perceive, interpret, and respond to information. Perceptual bias is one type, primarily affecting how we process visual and sensory inputs. However, the brain exhibits several other biases that shape our cognitive processes, decisions, and judgments across different domains.

1. Perceptual Bias

It refers to the brain’s tendency to interpret sensory information in a way that aligns with its expectations, experiences, or context. It affects how we perceive the world around us, often leading us to see or hear what we expect or want to. Examples.

• Optical Illusions: The brain can be tricked into seeing things that aren’t there or perceiving an image differently from its physical reality (e.g., seeing a cube in a 2D drawing).
• Face Pareidolia: The tendency to perceive faces in inanimate objects (e.g., seeing a face in a cloud or on the moon) due to the brain’s bias towards recognizing faces quickly.

2. Attentional Bias

It refers to the tendency of our perception to be affected by our recurring thoughts or emotions. The brain prioritizes certain types of information over others, often based on emotional significance or personal relevance. Examples.

• Threat Detection: Individuals with anxiety may have an attentional bias toward potential threats, causing them to focus more on fearful or negative stimuli in their environment.
• Confirmation Bias: When reading an article, people are more likely to focus on and remember information that supports their existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory information.

3. Memory Biases

They are distortions in how we recall information. The brain tends to remember certain types of information more vividly or inaccurately than others based on emotional impact, personal relevance, or frequency. Examples.

• Consistency Bias: The tendency to recall one’s past attitudes and behaviors as being more similar to the present ones than they actually were.
• Negativity Bias: Negative experiences are often remembered more vividly than positive ones, which can influence future behavior and decision-making.

4. Cognitive Biases

They are systematic patterns of deviation from the norm or rationality in judgment. These biases often result from the brain’s attempt to simplify information processing, which can lead to errors in reasoning and decision-making. Examples:

• Anchoring Bias: The tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the “anchor”) when making decisions.
• Availability Heuristic: The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory, often influenced by recent exposure or emotional impact (e.g., fearing plane crashes more than car accidents due to recent news coverage of a crash).

5. Emotional biases

It occurs when emotional factors influence decision-making or judgments. The brain is inclined to process information through an emotional lens, affecting the choices we make. Examples:

• Optimism Bias: The tendency to believe that one is less likely to experience a negative event compared to others.
• Affect Heuristic: Making a decision based on emotions or “gut feelings” rather than factual evidence or logical reasoning.

6. Motivational biases

They arise when our desires or interests influence our perceptions, judgments, or actions. These biases are often subconscious and affect how we interpret and engage with information. Examples:

• Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to one’s own actions and negative outcomes to external factors.
• Confirmation Bias: The tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses.

7. Social biases

They are influenced by social norms, stereotypes, or expectations. The brain tends to process information in ways that conform to group norms or expectations. Examples:

• Ingroup Bias: Favoring members of one’s own group over those of other groups, which can influence judgments and behavior.
• Stereotyping: Forming generalized beliefs about a group of people based on limited information, often leading to biased perceptions and actions.