The search bubble.
Let me guess - you use Google as your default search engine, and does not complain much because it is the default on Google Chrome and it loads hella fast thanks to their good servers worldwide. I was used to use Google too. I mean, it works. That's kinda the most important thing to an end user after all.
But what if we dig a little deeper...no, I don't mean the privacy issues. Google had my voice data, my mails, my search preferences, and literally a lot more of stuff that I gave them without realizing. Yes, I should have read their terms of service or privacy policy, but let's be real and agree that no one is going to read the super long thing. I won't be surprised if they are able to build something that fully replicates me...AI is scary in some ways. Whatever, that's not our main topic today. We are about to talk about the post title, that is, the search bubble.
You might have heard about it before this if you are aware enough on the net. But if you are just an average net user that does not stick closely to whatever news that is posted and articles that are written regarding internet developments, then you are probably still in the shadows.
Big companies that own search engines - Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and their Bing, and...what's more? I don't remember, but most of the times if it's a company that collects your data, they will be using your data to personalize your search results. It's the 21st century and everyone is crazy on this. They build profiles based on what you tell them, and make your search result page exactly yours. Doesn't sound like a bad thing, right? I mean, who doesn't like to see relevant results? But things can be go a little too much.
It is said that search bubbles restrict people from knowing more than what search engines think they should know - since they bubbled it - I didn't believe that a long time ago. But right now...wow. I searched for the Malaysia's railway systems website to print a ticket I will be using tomorrow, and this is what shows up.
What I wanted is the first one, and I'm pretty glad that it's there. But then look at the rest - a big part of them are not even related to what I want. But, I get to know another non-profit organization and another airport. Hey, knowing more never hurts. This is what the search engine gives if it knows nothing about me - it gives everything it finds to be relevant.
Then, what about we apply a cute little bubble there and personalize my stuff?
Here's the thing. Google knows that I am Malaysian, and it guesses that I will be interested in the news and stuff that relates to this thing instead of giving me any other stuff that are related to the search term. I somehow wonder why there isn't any news about new railways or fee drops or something like that...either that they never happened or Google knows that everyone loves negative news.
I once read an article about search bubbles restricting people from knowing certain things because the search engines think that they are not interested. It's getting interesting here, because if you apply this to some political scene...yea, get my point? You will be stopped from knowing a lot of things if the search bubbles close you up well enough.
That's one of the reasons I kept on using DuckDuckGo as my default search engine. It's not like I hate the bubbles a lot - they are handy sometimes, especially with confusing search terms, bubbles can put you on the right stuff instead of random stuff leaving you to refine the terms more. But, sometimes it's good to have the bubble off because you get to see more and know more. It never hurts. Plus there's a trick for me to use Google whenever I can, DuckDuckGo has a way for it.
It will be a little uncomfortable leaving the bubble for the first time, but it is good in my opinion. Probably you should try it.
See you next time,
--Lilacse
This is an interesting topic. I am not so sure it is enough for me to want to stop using Google, because I am a thinker, and if Google doesn't give me the desired results, I will dig deeper, (even if it entails utilizing a different search engine) which I sometimes do, and it just so happens, that search engine is duck.
I think we have talked before about some of the funtions of duck, and just how great of a service it is they have, but in my recent uses of duckduckgo, I find the search results to seem a bit outdated. Perhaps it's just based on the relevance of what I am searching, and how much attention the topics have in recent times.I am not sure, but when I am searching for things regarding crypto, I don't want to read articles from 4 years ago, because outdated advice in the tech world, seems to usually not be relevant or sound today.
The topic of AI is interesting in this regard as well, and also relevant in many ways. Forget about personality profiling for AI clones of self. That's a scary/interesting topic, and the show Black Mirror has some pretty good representations of what this would actually entail. (also scary/interesting) I tend to feel like we are in a matrix of sorts, where everyone is disconnectedly connected. That being said, what if the bubble assisted AI to mold everyone's personal virtual reality experience, in the sense that AI starts pumping out it's own websites and articles, and the end user finds him/herself in a world where the differential can no longer be made? Before you know it, everything you know is altered by AI to mold you (mind control) into what it wants. That is straight up scary.
But don't worry about your data that is stored in Google, because simply put, it will eventually become dwarfed by the info you input into the blockchain ;) and how convenient would it be for AI to scrape the blockchain for it's personality profile resource?
When the time comes, it will already know you were thinking and talking about it, now....Won't it?
Nice article @lilacse. I didn't get enough sleep, I have been sleeping minimal hours lately for some reason, but this was just the ticket to get my mental stimuli firing this morning.
To be honest, the Duck sometimes give weird results. Not really outdated (I just tried searching for something like "doge eth bridge" which is a pretty fresh topic and I get stuff within this year. Although not the best ones but still it's something, plus the term I used is pretty vague, so it might not be the best example. Google also gave similar results, so I guess it's pretty fine.
I mainly use DuckDuckGo for the bangs instead of anything else. The bubble pop is a plus, but normally we don't care that much for it to become a big thing. If I know where to find my stuff, I can just bang it instead of set the scope to be so large. Most of the times I just naturally use them in the school library and not realizing that their search engine is Google...so you know how much I got addicted to it. Can't live without t
Well, we probably won't live to see that day come, but it's hard to say because technology grows so fast...but come to think of it, blockchains are revolutionary and humans normally aren't very happy with drastic changes. If you know the new EU copyright laws that might get passed on this 20th of June, I feel that they are made because of the advancement of blockchain technology and P2P technology like IPFS. It is made so powerful till the extent that it threatens the creation of memes, and yea you know the riot that comes with it. https://saveyourinternet.eu. With that being said, we will probably see the top countries that hold the best technologies making weapons to slow their own progressions down...humans :3
Not getting enough sleep is normal when you are tweaking your sleep schedule, and there is a method to reset your biological clock - by intentionally get lesser sleep. Basically, break the thing even further, force yourself to be awake throughout the day, until you get to the time you plan to sleep, then sleep. That resets the biological clock, according to the article. But of course, I didn't try it by myself :P
Good luck. :3
God bless you. https://steemit.com/@biblegateway
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