Nothing Changes in an Echo Chamber, Including You!
In today’s world, it is nearly impossible to avoid the echo chamber. Yours is likely giving you a false sense of security, maintaining a false reality, stroking your ego, and not making a lick of difference in a world that is on fire. When the cable news cycle is down to 17 minutes (my snarky estimate of the time between “breaking news” alerts) — yes, the world is on fire. That hyperactive news cycle and ever-present social media are like heroin to our issues-addicted brains.
From one minute to the next we consume large volumes of information that co-mingles facts, alternative facts, and bias. The lines between journalism and punditry no longer exist so it is hard for even the most engaged consumers of news to tell the difference. Then there is a universe of information and discourse that lives in the realm of social media. According to a 2016 survey by Deloitte, Americans check their phones 47 times per day. After checking text messages and email, the next thing we do is visit a cornerstone of our echo chamber, social media accounts.[1] Be honest. When you woke up this morning, how long did it take you to visit your echo chamber? How soon did you check your social media accounts and turn the television to your favorite and only cable news outlet?
I’m hyper-aware of my echo chamber. It bothers me. It is about 98% impenetrable because size matters and the smaller the chamber, the less likely it is that new ideas will get in or that mine will get out. My 1,100+ Twitter followers; 991 LinkedIn connections; assorted connections from other social media; my preferred cable news networks, and my liberal-minded friends, family, and colleagues reinforce the walls of my chamber with ideas that confirm what I already know — I’m right. I’m right to believe what I believe. I’m right to oppose what I oppose. I’m right to express what I express. I’m right to question what I question. I’m right to expect others to carry my narrative. When I stand in my echo chamber and shout “I’m right,” residents of my chamber shout back, “You’re right!”
The cohabitants of my echo chamber are my people! They are like-minded individuals who see the world as I see it. They make my echo chamber a welcoming and predictable place where I feel like I am testing my beliefs and influencing others. They affirm almost everything I think and feel. We kick around selected facts that support our shared beliefs and ignore the ones that do not. We strategize about how we will do our small part to take action and make the world a better place. We bemoan the misguided masses who just don’t get “it,” whatever “it” is on a given day.
The echo chamber is real and so is the effort necessary to build it, escape it, or demolish it. According to a 2016 Wired article by Kartik Kosanagar, our echo chamber and the information presented to us within it reflect self-curated networks and social media algorithms. Upon further exploration, he concluded that our online behavior and consumption of information consistently reinforces our existing beliefs and that has a lot to do with how we structure our networks. “Content on Facebook is less ideologically diverse when it’s shared by friends.”[2] This is most certainly the case with our political views. Think about it. Which of your friends, followers, or contacts routinely sends articles and information that are diametrically opposed to the world view of your network? If they did, how would people respond?
My primary social media platform is Twitter (I’m new to Facebook — don’t judge me). Over the past few years I have used Twitter as a place to curate content on topics of interest, from people and sources I liked. Day after day I noticed that not much changed with regard to what I was seeing and learning from my network.
Twitter slowly revealed itself as my echo chamber and that made me increasingly uncomfortable. Throughout 2015 I paid closer attention to my news sources and decided to follow news outlets with a decidedly different political lean than mine. My rationale was that I needed to hear the ideas of “the opposition” to rebut effectively when challenged by them in person.
In 2016 I noticed a lack of ideological, professional, and educational diversity among the people I follow on Twitter. Ironic considering that I know diversity makes us smarter and I always want to be smart! [3] Worse than that, if someone tweeted me directly with an opinion different than my own I did not engage them, I blocked them. I started to see each block and unfollow, every decision to disengage or not engage, as missed opportunities to learn, to change hearts and minds, and to sharpen my mental edge.
As the ideological fabric of our country has unraveled and we have tied it in knots, I decided to step outside of my echo chamber and I cannot lie, it is scary out here. I committed to engage in discourse that would test my assumptions, challenge my beliefs, and give me opportunities to learn from and influence people who do not think or believe as I do.
Lessons from the Outside
It has not been easy opening up myself and my ideas to people I know disagree with me. In fact, it has been intimidating even though it most often happens virtually. I have also had to accept that at times, there will be no resolution or agreement at the end of the discourse.
Beyond social media, I watch cable news from all parts of the ideological spectrum although at times it can irritate me to the depths of my soul. It requires me to spend a fair amount of time separating the wheat from the chaff because every news source has deficiencies. In addition to that, the media has made it almost impossible to identify the dividing lines between facts and opinions. We have comedians, actors, scripted shows, pundits, athletes, elected officials, and billionaire’s all providing social and political commentary and analysis. None of them are solely committed to presenting facts and most Americans are not inclined to sort through the information they provide to conduct their own analysis and form their own opinions.
In addition to cable news and other traditional media, there is a wilderness of ideas and opinions on social media. As I engage with individuals who have opinions that differ from mine and I have intentionally entered their discourse, I have sometimes attracted the attention of racists, classists, sexists, and all-around scary people. F-bombs have been lobbed my way, after which I quickly blocked the perpetrators (that is where I draw the line). I have had to throw my phone across the room to get it away from me before I typed a scathing, unproductive response to what I considered ridiculously ignorant beliefs and alternative facts. It was in that moment that I realized that my echo chamber had been keeping me safe — from me.
Over the past ten weeks I have added hashtags to tweets that I knew would put me on the radar screens of people with whom I strongly disagree. I sought them out to engage in meaningful discourse. To date, I have participated in “Twitter-bates” with eight people and I’m keeping track of how the back and forth is going.
In two instances, F-bombs were lobbed and those two people were quickly blocked. In another instance, we reached a stalemate and agreed to disagree. The other five interactions were lengthy, complicated, and emotional on both sides but the outcomes were worth every 140 characters. While they disagreed with me in real time regarding facts and sources, all five people went back and later liked several of my tweets that provided facts and data sources. Three of those five people, who are my political and demographic opposites, now follow me and I follow them. They now peek through windows in my echo chamber and I peek into theirs. While I don’t consider these to be relationships in the truest sense of the word, I suppose we are relating.
Below is the end of a recent Twitter-bate regarding controversial public policy. While it was a difficult exchange, we both listened and occasionally ALL-CAPPED each other. Ultimately, we found a way to end well.
My echo chamber sheltered my ideas while it limited my vision and life experiences. Opening and exiting my echo chamber hasn’t been easy but I will continue. Life outside of the echo chamber has taught me many lessons.
I learned that there are some truly good people who are truly misinformed and believe some truly crazy things. I learned that understanding the source of someone’s beliefs and values is an important step to finding common ground. I learned that disagreement doesn’t have to equal dislike and when it does, I need to understand why. I learned that I can find compassion for someone by reading 140 characters and that they can find compassion for me but that does not mean we know one another. I learned that some people will remain as they are and there is nothing that I can do about it but when I can do something, I should. I learned that sometimes, when people have time to think, the echoes of my ideas can break through their walls of ignorance. I also learned that not everything I believe or value is right or wrong because within complex social issues and public policy there are shades of gray, flashes of orange and teal, often interwoven with ribbons of purple and gold. At other times, it is all quite black and white.
Seven Steps to Escape
Regardless of your world view, you will benefit from time outside of your echo chamber. Try the following steps. Expand your thinking and your networks.
1. Admit you have an echo chamber and see it for what it is.
2. Curate your intellectual network and social media networks to include diverse sources, people, opinions, and ideas.
3. Compare news stories across networks, newspapers, and social media platforms. Don’t swallow information whole without chewing it first.
4. Use a hashtag that can draw you into new and different online discussions and have other people to enter yours.
5. Engage in meaningful discourse. Find your way out of and into echo chambers that belong to people with whom you disagree.
6. Be open in your approach to discourse. Prioritize listening and learning. When you do, the person on the other side is more likely to hear you too.
7. Don’t go overboard. Stepping out of your echo chamber should challenge you but not consume you. Set boundaries and stick to them. Remember that mine was the F-bomb.
Bottom Line
Echo chambers aren’t all bad. We need supportive and familiar places to strengthen and affirm our beliefs and values. Echo chambers played important roles in great social movements and great social change. They were the places where like-minded people envisioned the future and planned to make it a reality. Whether it was the Civil Rights Movement, women’s suffrage, Vietnam War protests, public health’s anti-smoking efforts, or even the Women’s March, the tipping point for change occurred when the echo chambers disappeared, diversified, or got big enough to include a critical mass of Americans. In those moments, they served a higher purpose and became suitable, albeit temporary homes for high ideals.
Social and policy change require constructive discourse on ways to make the world a better place. That exchange of ideas has hard limits within the walls on any echo chamber. Every day that we stay locked inside our networks or limited by our sources of information, we miss opportunities to improve ourselves and society.
You want to change the world or maybe just America? Go forth and engage and maybe I’ll catch you in a Twitter-bate!
[1] Deloitte. 2015 Global Mobile Consumer Survey: US Edition. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/global-mobile-consumer-survey-us-edition.html
[2] Hosanagar, K. (2016, November 15). Blame the Echo Chamber on Facebook. But Blame Yourself, Too. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-echo-chamber/
[3] Phillips, K. (2014, October 1). Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/
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