tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3955304210599373230.post2389572489834242356..comments2024-03-28T17:50:40.478+00:00Comments on Fuse open science blog: Democratizing, or polarising and exclusive?Fusehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02167289608282259405noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3955304210599373230.post-11038229604882755842012-09-25T11:52:34.405+01:002012-09-25T11:52:34.405+01:00Yes - I agree. The challenge is to force yourself ...Yes - I agree. The challenge is to force yourself to be exposed to the other side of the argument. My grandmother lived alone for much of her life, but post-retirement had a regular visiting and visitor scheduled. She divided these people into friends and 'charity' (mostly elderly people with limited mobility who she generally didn't have much in common with). She kept up the charity visiting because without regular contact with people who didn't share her views, she felt her argumentative and thinking skills got sloppy. <br /><br />Someone should set up a social media site that only connects you to people you disagree with! Fusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02167289608282259405noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3955304210599373230.post-18956909594678201252012-09-25T11:39:05.726+01:002012-09-25T11:39:05.726+01:00I think self-selection of who one follows, as well...I think self-selection of who one follows, as well as liberal use of the "unfollow" button (and it's equivalents on other sites), has some really interesting effects. On social media websites, I think even more so than in real life, it means that people are frequently surrounded by people who have approximately the same point of view as themselves. Ideas rarely get challenged, world-views often become narrowed. People get lots of positive reinforcement of their particular view, and sometimes struggle to understand why the rest of the world doesn't agree - or, as frequently seen on Twitter, why BBC News doesn't cover what they believe to be an earth-shattering news story which, when viewed from a wider perspective, isn't nearly as significant as people convince themselves that it is.<br /><br />I don't think this is anything new. There have always been insular groups of conspiracy theorists and party-political bods, but I worry a bit that it's becoming more widespread. At least if you blog, comments are from all-comers, whether they agree or disagree. With Twitter and similar sites, it's all to easy to ignore the detractors.<br /><br />A minority of people I follow on Twitter are people who eloquently argue for points of view that differ considerably from my own. My mind has been changed in the past through discussing news stories on Twitter. But it is all too easy, when you "just can't be bothered", to block out all those other voices. It's too easy to convince yourself that they're morons whose opinions aren't worthy of consideration, and simply to prevent yourself from hearing their views.<br /><br />To me, it's a bit of a paradox: we all naturally seek like-minded individuals, and are socially encouraged to do so, but perhaps surrounding ourselves only with like-minded individuals is a broadly "unhealthy" thing to do. <br /><br />Anyway, just a thought... I wonder if it has any impact for academic use of Twitter? Simon Howardhttp://sjhoward.co.uk/noreply@blogger.com