Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

Shane Parrish takes a deep dive into filter bubbles. I found several great quotes that I'll be using in a lesson on this topic. Some of the best:

• I've always loved The New Yorker cartoon on internet anonymity. Parrish quotes Eli Pariser's book Filter Bubbles: "The new Internet doesn’t just know you’re a dog; it knows your breed and wants to sell you a bowl of premium kibble." What a great way to  introduce this topic to middle schoolers!
• Another quote from Pariser: "Your computer monitor is a kind of one-way mirror, reflecting your own interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click." 
• Also Pariser: "Your identity shapes your media. There’s just one flaw in this logic: Media also shape identity. And as a result, these services may end up creating a good fit between you and your media by changing … you."
• Pariser again: "Personalized filters play to the most compulsive parts of you, creating “compulsive media” to get you to click things more."
• From a study on filter bubbles and voting by Jacob N. Shapiro: "The results of these experiments demonstrate that (i) biased search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more, (ii) the shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and (iii) search ranking bias can be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation." (emphasis added.)
• A quote from President Obama: "And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it’s true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there."
• And finally, a great summary for middle schoolers from Pariser: “A world constructed from the familiar is the world in which there's nothing to learn.”