gianmarco
Footballguy
Confirmation bias and social media
We could all use this to improve ourselves, especially in today's climate.
We could all use this to improve ourselves, especially in today's climate.
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How to break out of your social media echo chamber (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter gianmarco
- Start date
Tecumseh
Footballguy
stories from both sides get posted here. like the Tennessee "their hiding the COVID data" story. If I only followed liberal news sites on twitter/facebook, I would never have seen it, or that it was bogus and retracted. well done PSF.
this place isn't a liberal echo chamber, it's mainly an never-Trump chamber. those aren't nearly the same thing.
I can't think of many sources I'd trust less to get a balanced view than this forum. As the owner, it's a failure on my part.
And for sure, I don't think anyone is suggesting an Anti Trump echo chamber is the same as a Liberal echo chamber.
I think people are suggesting echo chambers in general are ungood. That's how I see it.
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Disagree strongly with both the first two sentences. I would say between the FFA and the PSF, its a great place for great discussion and breaking news.
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All good. 
MTskibum
Footballguy
LiveScience.com and arstechnica.com are my favorite for science/tech related news, but there are other sites out there that are good as well.
HBR for economics/business news
BBC and Wall Street journal for the more "traditional" type news.
All good ones. I can follow all of them on Twitter
. It's a one-stop shop. Maybe its semantics. I really don't follow a lot of individuals on Twitter.ETA: Rex Chapman has awesome videos though.
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2Squirrels1Nut
Footballguy
along with the observation that it isn't a liberal echo chamber as much as a never Trump. I don't get the balance either. If 50% of the people here believed 1+1=2 and 50% believed 1+1=3 you would have balance however 50% of people would be 100% wrong. Prior to Trump it seemed to me to lean 60/40 D/R. Never participated in political discussions much and was a registered R my entire life until Trump.Really just checked in to post that I had a dream last night that @gianmarco moved in across the street from me and he had this giant water gun and would spend his days spraying anyone that walked by his house.
gianmarco
Footballguy
Wait, wut?
Really just checked in to post that I had a dream last night that @gianmarco moved in across the street from me and he had this giant water gun and would spend his days spraying anyone that walked by his house.
sho nuff
Footballguy
I think people can get news from such places that are posting helpful links.
As with everything...consider the sources being followed before clicking. I don't follow terrible sources...but decent writers on Twitter (which is very few as I use it more for sports news than others). No...don't use your friends as sources on FB...and really watch what any of them post on there...Id agree there that don't use facebook for news...but every now and then an actual worthwhile article gets posted that I would not necessarily have seen otherwise....same thing happens here.
Stealthycat
Footballguy
I am doing zoom's now for political groups and most often its 3 to 1 liberal/conservative and that's good - I have little desire to do long discussions with people who believe exactly as I do.
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Anybody seen the Netflix doc-drama hybrid The Social Dilemma yet?
BobbyLayne
Footballguy
Terminalxylem
Footballguy
Yep. Pretty disturbing, but not surprising.BobbyLayne said:
quick-hands
Footballguy
I agree. This used to be my go to place for information. It hasn't been that in 10years. But inertia is tuff
rockaction
Footballguy
Considering that my Twitter feed consists of mostly fantasy football stuff and hip hop/punk rock acts, I get a broad spectrum. My facebook feed -- all my old friends, even the formerly conservative ones -- is really liberal, so much so that I don't really read it anymore because it's so hostile and so much invective is used that it's no fun to have friends, even, or so it would appear.
Rich Conway
Footballguy
People keep repeating this, and I really don't believe it's true. There are a LOT of conservative posters here (40+). There are fewer pro-Trump posters here because many of the conservatives are also anti-Trump, but the pro-Trumpers still number in the dozens (plural).
Da Guru
Fair & Balanced
If anyone has a realistic view of the audience here it would be the person who owns the forum. If you look at most forums they might start out somewhat balanced but end up one way or the other. I belong to a golf forum in Michigan that has 30K members and of course politics seeped into it. That forum is 80-20% the opposite of this one. So much so the liberal members stopped posting there. It just ends up that way on social media. People go where others tend to agree with them.
Same with the Shark Pool. When someone asks a question about starting a QB or whoever, they usually have already decided but want others to back up their decision.
Rich Conway
Footballguy
The owner readily admits he reads less than 10% of the content.
The rest of your post really has nothing to do with the current makeup of the forum. I'm telling you, the bolded portion of my post to which you replied is accurate. Those numbers aren't based on a finger in the air feeling; they are based on me actually counting individual posters, and in some cases, reading back through that poster's PSF history to determine political lean. I'm not going to publicly post a list, but feel free to send me a PM if you want to check my work.
Da Guru
Fair & Balanced
I don`t take it that seriously here. I have never looked at anyone's posting history nor will I ever.
Just going by what the owner of the forum states.
I do believe it's true. And that's why it's repeated.
For better or for worse, this forum is not representative of the balance of the country.
13% of the people here would vote for Trump. Nationwide, it ranges from 39% to 47%.
We've done several presidential approval polls. Polls with a real question using the words the real polls do. Not the fake "let's bust the MYTH so please vote here" polls.
6.24.18 16% approval here 41% approval nationwide
10.7.18 18% approval here 42% approval nationwide
2.8.19 12% approval here 40% approval nationwide
4.3.19 21% approval here 42% approval nationwide
11.1.19 16% approval here 41% approval nationwide
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
Can you please list the multiple dozens of Pro Trump people here?
On the demographic side, it's not necessarily bad we're so different from the country. I'm sure many people will say something along the line we poll way differently because the posters here are superior to the average person without actually saying those words.
But we as a demographic are not very representative. That's not necessarily good or bad. But what IS bad I believe is failing to realize how non representative we are.
So to answer the original question of the post on how to break out of the bubble, by far my biggest answer would be the first step is identifying the bubble.
In my opinion, failing to realize the bubble we're in (any bubble, not just here) is a huge detriment for us.
In my opinion, failing to realize the bubble we're in (any bubble, not just here) is a huge detriment for us.
Rich Conway
Footballguy
None of those FBG polls are public. I know for a fact that Trump supporters here intentionally try to skew the results of the anonymous FBG polls in order to claim victimhood.Joe Bryant said:
My point is that those polls cannot be used as evidence of anything. Instead, I went to the effort of manually counting the number of active conservative posters and active pro-Trump posters. I'd be more than happy to send you a list of names if you want to check my work and draw your own conclusion.
Rich Conway
Footballguy
Da Guru
Fair & Balanced
Rich Conway
Footballguy
Cool. I will do so today when I get some time. I assume you can see how I might have considered it a grey area re: the ban on the calling out other posters or commenting on their posting style.
Doug B
Footballguy
Depends on how one parses "balanced".
a) "Roughly equal numbers of posters representing both sides of an issue"? Then you're right -- the numbers representing both sides will typically not be equal.
b) "Both sides will get at least some representation"? Especially for big issues and events ... the two major sides will absolutely be represented by at least some posters. And typically, many nuanced in-between views will be shared as well.
There is also a "depth of concept" metric (roughly, "arguing via sound bite" vs. "structured, factually-supported debate") -- more often than not, that will be unbalanced in a given thread.
shadrap
Footballguy
Thanks.
It feels like a major stretch to say "b" is remotely close to balanced. The fact something is 15% short of being unanimous, doesn't make it balanced.
That's like saying in a normal year 10,000 Tampa Bay fans in the corner of the Superdome next to 60,000 Saints fans provides a "balance".
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To follow up the much more important question, surely someone like you who's been here a long time doesn't trust this forum to be balanced do you?
rockaction
Footballguy
I really don't think balanced should be the aim. Cute is what we should aim for. No, sorry, that's an emo band. Truth. That's it. Truth is what we should aim for. And civility and respect of the other person commenting.
Cute is good.
And I don't know balanced is the aim either.
I think recognizing a bubble is a good aim. And getting outside the bubble.
For better or for worse, (and I fully realize most think it's for the better) this forum is absolutely an anti Trump bubble.
rockaction
Footballguy
I agree with the bold font in your quote. But recognizing and getting out of the bubble requires intellectual and emotional discipline, as well as a good assessment of reality with respect to your own opinions. We have some people that pass off truly minority opinions around here as simple fact because they're so convinced that it is indeed fact that they see no need to brook response.Cute is good.
And I don't know balanced is the aim either.
I think recognizing a bubble is a good aim. And getting outside the bubble.
For better or for worse, (and I fully realize most think it's for the better) this forum is absolutely an anti Trump bubble.
As far as for better or for worse goes, I don't think this forum does anything but mirror the general tone of the day's opinion editorials, which tend to range from slight distaste of President Trump to strong inveighing against him. I think it's asking a lot of literate, learned people not to pay attention to the zeitgeist, I guess, and especially too much to ask of us with all of our leisure time. I think the bubble may be for the worse, and I'm not sure whose fault it is, or whether it lies with the President or the op-ed writers and politicos and citizens as classes of people.
In short, this place does seem so unbalanced as to throw up one's hands, but then one recognizes that the stuff being reported is largely true, so what to do?
Of course.
One can still "be exposed" to things outside the bubble but still mostly retreat to the safety and comfort of their bubble where most people think like them.
I see this a ton with Christians. I'm guilty of this too. We'll spend time talking about how everyone else has it so wrong and how bad things are "out there" but then still spend way more time self righteously huddled up in our own little bubble instead of actually getting outside our little comfort place. All the time thinking our bubble is reality.
Doug B
Footballguy
Not especially, not in the way you mean "balanced". Nevertheless, I stand my my "A vs B" post. I am not concerned with having equal numbers of posters on both sides of a debate. The quality of the ideas presented is what matters -- not the number of times ideas are repeated and co-signed.
If I am concerned with anything, it's simple availability of a range of opinions. And I'm concerned about that more at the individual thread level, and much less at the level of evaluating the entire forum. Posters -- as an aggregate -- in some threads do a great job of making a variety of cases from points along the entire spectrum. In other threads, posts devolve to dung-slinging in short order and quickly render concerns about "balance" moot.
that's not a problem for this godless infidel. I think I only know like 3 or 4 others personally
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