You are living in an epistemic bubble

An epistemic bubble is a network of information where some relevant information is missing – either because information is merely omitted or because some forces in the network are intentionally undermining dissenting opinion. For example, if you get all of your news from a single source, it’s very likely that there is a side to the debate that you’re not being exposed to. To some extent, we are all trapped in a bubble. 

Social media platforms have made the problem worse. Every time you click on an article, search for something, or hit the like button, you’re giving that platform information about how to keep you engaged. As it turns out, what keeps you happy and engaged is seeing things that you already agree with. Your “friend” list is probably largely composed of individuals who think and vote like you. 

All of this works to confirm and entrench you in your beliefs. The personalization technology used by social media platforms are likely a part of the explanation of why polarization has grown to such a degree. 

Think about how this may have impacted your beliefs. You started off with general attitudes about various social and political issues. You might search for articles that provide reasons in favor of those attitudes. Your friend list grows with people whose posts provide you with more ammunition. The algorithm adjusts so that the information that you’re exposed to is ever more aligned with your beliefs.

You might even click on articles that express disagreement with you. But by this time it’s too late. The overwhelming evidence is that you’re right. Even if you’re not cognizant of it, your mind isn’t as receptive to evidence that contradicts your beliefs as it is to those that confirm them.

You become absolutely certain that your own positions are true. Not only that, your positions are so obviously true to you that you become convinced that there must be something wrong with those who disagree with you – either morally or intellectually. 

You fail to realize that perhaps if those who disagree with you had been in your epistemic bubble, bombarded with the same stream of information, that they would believe as you do. But they live within an entirely different epistemic bubble, bombarded with reasons to think differently. They believe that there must be something wrong with you.

Are the social media companies to blame? It doesn’t look like they’ve done anything wrong, at least in this case. After all, they’re just giving you what you want. If you were happier reading opinions that challenge your beliefs, that’s what they would provide. Their algorithms aren’t tracking your beliefs, they are tracking your clicks and the amount of time you spend on the platform. Those just happen to be maximized by feeding your gluttonous hunger for confirmation.

We should not wait for social media companies or the government to solve this problem for us. Once we’ve recognized that we are trapped in a bubble, there are steps we can take to improve our epistemic states. 

The appropriate response isn’t to immediately throw away all of your beliefs – of course, you may have been right all along. The answer is to soften the conviction that you have in your beliefs and to be open to the alternatives. 

We can recognize that those who disagree with us are not our enemies and that they’re typically not evil – they are probably living in their own epistemic bubble and may possess information that we are missing. It’s also important to note that you often have the same values as them. Looking at the abortion debate, both sides value the respect of the rights of individuals, they just disagree about how we should best weigh the competing rights.

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One diagnosis of the problem is that we are failing to live up to the epistemic principle that the order in which our evidence is received should have no impact on our final beliefs. If you were a detective investigating a serial public urinator, it shouldn’t matter that you heard that Suspect 1 had a wet spot on his pants before you heard that Suspect 2 was at the scene of the crime. You should look at all of the evidence and determine which suspect the total evidence points to as the perpetrator. 

But this is precisely how people get trapped in epistemic bubbles. They’re exposed to evidence that supports one side of a debate, become convinced of its truth, and fail to give proper consideration to counterevidence – the order in which they received the information determines what they believe.

So the suggestion here is that we should seek out dissenting opinions, look at our total relevant evidence, and then form the appropriate beliefs. Given the fact that we’re almost certainly living in a bubble, the least we can do is become slightly less convinced that everything we believe is true.