5
OPINION

Thursday, July 13, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

N

early 
all 
last 
year, 

every time I would go 
on Facebook and scroll 

through my newsfeed, I would see 
dozens of articles I wanted to read. 
But as someone who is generally 
too busy for their own good, I often 
had to save articles for later. So, 99 
percent of the time, I saved the link 
to the article in a note-taking app 
on my computer. Finally, this year, 
I sat down, and I started to clicking 
through my list of nearly 150 articles 
that I had been meaning to read. 
And as overwhelming as it seemed 
in the moment, I quickly realized 
something as I browsed through the 
articles. 

After reading the first twenty or so 

articles, I began to recognize the title 
or the cover art as that of an article 
I’d already read. And even when the 
title and cover art didn’t remind me 
I’d read the article, the contents of it 
would sound vaguely familiar, and 
I would eventually remember I’d 
already read that one. I put two and 
two together and realized that as the 
year had gone by, many of the same 
articles that I saw and had saved to 
read popped up again, months later, 
when I’d forgotten about them, and, 
again intrigued (after all, it would be 
the same article), I would save it to 
read.

Last semester at the Daily, the 

staff talked extensively about how to 
increase our publication’s presence 
online, and one particular topic 
of discussion has still stuck with 
me: Facebook and how its newest 
algorithm made it so users will only 
see posts that — based on likes and 
interactions with accounts, articles 
and pages — Facebook believed they 
would be interested in.

While it can be nice not to have to 

sift through every single post from 
each one of my Facebook friends 
— especially when it had been so 
long that I only recognized some 
my Facebook friends by name — 
seeing first-hand how Facebook 
not only filtered profile pictures, 
statuses and cover photos, but 
also 
articles, 
was 
especially 

alarming to me. Equally alarming 
is that the majority of Americans 
are getting their news from social 
media, therefore the algorithms 
that determine what we see are 
increasingly important.

While my Twitter presence is 

dismal at best, I have seen how 
Twitter can have the same effect. 
In March 2016, Twitter launched 
a new algorithm. Like Facebook, 
instead of showing posts from all 
the people you follow, you would 

now only see certain tweets based 
on what the algorithm thought were 
your preferences. And even though 
there 
was 
significant 
backlash 

against the switch to an algorithmic 
timeline, prompting Twitter to 
provide users the option to opt out of 
the new algorithm in favor of the old 
timeline where you saw every post 
in chronological order, only about 
two percent of users opted out and 
took the time to actively change the 
settings back to the old version.

As technology has become more 

innovative and complex, so have 
programs that analyze what we 
“like” on Facebook, what we read, 
what we listen to, the places we shop 
online and the searches we put into 
Google. Though tailoring content 
can be useful at times, it can also be 
problematic.

Because of these algorithms, we 

are seeing more of the same type of 
articles and same type of posts, and 
we aren’t so much exposing ourselves 
to new ideas or opinions. As I wrote 
about in my most recent column, 
opinions won’t always change, but 
if we never hear the other side, we 
will never have the opportunity to 
challenge our opinions. We won’t 
have that chance to think and expand 
our worldview. With algorithms that 
show us what it thinks we want to 
see, it’s helping to vastly shrink our 
world, not encouraging exploration 
and openness, which I argue is 
crucial in any society.

Politics aside, though, the issue of 

tailored content based on algorithms 
and computer programs is also 
problematic because they can help, 
even subtly, reinforce stereotypes.

Recently, MLB.TV had a half-off 

discount for Fathers Day, but, at least 
when it comes down to the playoffs 
and postseason, women account for 
nearly one-third of those who watch 
sports such as baseball, basketball 
and football, to name only a few, so 
why not a Mothers Day discount?

Furthermore, 
even 
though 

networks 
almost 
always 
have 

monetary gain as a main concern, 
by assuming X or Y parties won’t be 
as interested, they could be missing 
out on a large market (I know the 
Father’s Day discount enticed me to 
purchase the rest of the MLB season 
even though I never would have for 
the regular price).

And though less pressing an issue, 

with tailored content, companies 
and analysts assume people won’t 
find something interesting they 
previously may not have thought 
much about. Yeah, I like what I like, 
but that doesn’t mean I won’t be open 

to new content. That doesn’t mean it 
will be a surefire indicator of what I 
will like in the future.

Netflix, for example, has a new 

feature where it tells users, based on 
previously watched movies and TV 
shows, the percent “match” a movie 
or show is for you. I recently saw 
Lee Daniels’ “The Butler,” which 
Netflix told me was a 70 percent 
match, but it was one of my favorite 
movies I’ve seen this year. In fact, 
two of my favorite movies could not 
be more opposite each other. But 
had I listened to an algorithm or a 
matching program, I may never have 
seen them.

In fact, everyone from movie 

producers 
to 
car 
companies, 

journalists to sports teams, lose 
out when they are always trying 
to predict which audiences will be 
most likely to be interested in their 
content. I’m not saying trying to place 
Heineken ads on Disney Channel is a 
good idea or putting an article about 
the stock market on an eleven-year-
old’s Facebook page makes sense, 
but it wouldn’t hurt for everyone to 
expand and experiment and think 
outside the box that says X or Y won’t 
find the article, product or movie 
interesting. 

In the last year, The New York 

Times 
morning 
briefings 
have 

started to include a section on 
partisan articles, to try to bridge a 
gap between people on different 
sides of the aisles. Companies and 
newspapers need to do what the 
Times is doing. They need to rethink 
how and where they disseminate 
information, what articles they 
should provide that might help them 
see and understand other side of the 
aisle, how to promote a movie that 
Netflix’s matching system would 
otherwise say they wouldn’t like or 
how to play with a potential market 
for a product that analysts said people 
who watch that TV channel wouldn’t 
be interested in.

As for people like me who aren’t 

making the advertising decisions or 
who can’t control the algorithms, 
we should take the initiative to read 
articles that aren’t just the first ones 
to pop up on Facebook or Twitter, 
seek out information on topics we 
wouldn’t think we’d be interested 
in, watch movies regardless of the 
fact that they were or were not 
recommended to us, branch out and 
try new products. It can be fun, and 
not to mention important, to try new 
things.

— Anna Polumbo-Levy can be 

reached at annapl@umich.edu.

Expand your horizons

H

ow do we know the existence 
of something? For most, we 
use one or more of our five 

senses. For example, we know a car 
exists because we can see or hear it. 
We know an apple exists because we 
can see the apple and taste it. This is 
one of the basic ideas of metaphysics, 
yet we run into a problem when we 
ponder the existence of something 
without the use of our sense, such 
as atoms. How do we know that 
atoms exist? According to my senses, 
I cannot see, hear, taste nor feel 
atoms, yet I “know”they exist. At its 
cornerstone, when we postulate the 
existence of atoms, we can suddenly 
explain a lot about the world. We can 
describe how we as humans are built, 
why certain reactions occur and how 
certain materials are better for our 
technology than others. The basis, as 
you might notice, is that society uses 
atomic theory to explain how our 
world exists. However, as explained 
by Socratic metaphysics, we search 
not simply for an explanation, but for 
the best explanation. 

Metaphysics, 
as 
much 
as 
it 

distinguishes itself from science, is an 
area of philosophy I keep returning 
to in my scientific debates. As a 
person who does extensive research 
in the neurolinguistics laboratory at 
the University of Michigan, studies 
neuroscience and is usually surrounded 
by “science activities” throughout my 
day, I have become a full supporter of 
the scientific process. Yet, on a daily 
basis, I am inundated with news of 
scientific doubt, be it climate change, 
evolution or vaccines. Why does this 
doubt occur? Will it help to increase 
science education? If we should, how 
do we do so? Is scientific doubt really 
the problem? Perhaps our problem as a 
nation is rooted elsewhere.

As stated in Socratic metaphysics, 

we cannot use our senses to 
determine the existence of climate 
change, evolution or vaccines. We can 
do research and posit an explanation 
for the increase of carbon in the 
atmosphere, the breaking of ice caps 
or how homo sapiens came to be. 
Through peer review and replicated 
studies, we, as a society, come to the 
best explanation of these issues. Even 
though we may agree on this process, 
doubt is inherently human, especially 
of something that is not confirmed by 
our senses. Many science skeptics, 
as well as contributors and analysts 
on the news, say this scientific doubt 
has simply gone awry in our country; 
however, I propose it is more than 
that: at its core, science skepticism 
isn’t based in doubt, it is often based 
on how we identify ourselves.

Our identities, especially today, 

are often correlated with a political 
party, a religion and many other 
“cultural identities.” We as humans 
construct our societies and belief 
systems based on emotions, so it 
should be no surprise that emotional 
attachment to scientific research can 
influence the way one approaches 
climate 
change, 
evolution 
or 

vaccines. Research done at Yale Law 
School on cultural cognition shows 
that a layperson’s belief in science 
does not reflect the knowledge that 
the person possesses — on evolution, 
for instance. Evidently, knowledge 
of science in this country does not 
always correlate to scientific trust. 
That means a significant portion 
of those who believe in climate 
change don’t understand the basics 
of the science. The problem isn’t 
the inherent doubt, it’s our society’s 
inability to remove identity from 
science.

Climate change, evolution and 

vaccines have large swaths of 
doubters because of the conflict 
the theories pose to an individual’s 
emotions and belief systems. In order 
to fix this, scientists and educators 
need to become more creative in their 
educational endeavors. We, as a diverse 
society with many perspectives, must 
extricate the science from identity. 
Those who support climate change 
theory do so because, in many cases, it 
supports his or her identity. The same 
can be said for those who doubt it. 
Association with a particular political 
party, a religion and other emotionally-
charged 
identifiers 
creates 
the 

misunderstanding surrounding the 
science, not the science itself. Removing 
science from these markers is a possible 
way we can gain a consensus on 
scientific evidence supporting climate 
change. This has begun in many 
schools that teach genetics, where 
evolution is approached but freed 
from a belief system. This is the next 
crucial step needed in climate change 
education to nonscientists.

Though 
science 
education, 

as well as exposure to scientific 
literature, can be improved in our 
schools as well, this, in my view, 
is not the root of science mistrust. 
We must find a way to remove the 
stigmatism surrounding science by 
introspectively recognizing the role 
our identities play in influencing 
policy. Only then, we can come to a 
consensus on the best explanations 
for our global problems.

— David Kamper can be reached 

at dgkamper@umich.edu.

DAVID KAMPER| COLUMN
ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY| COLUMN

The man who mistook his senses