The world wide web – a place where you can be in a filter bubble

The term ‘filter bubble’ only entered my lexicon last week when my daughter was doing a university assignment on the topic. It is, I learnt, the phenomena where we are served up web content based on what web sites we’ve visited in the past, what searches we’ve made and what comments we’ve made on blogs such as Facebook. Of course I knew that this happened, but I didn’t realise it was called a filter bubble.

Let’s look at this a little more closely. Do you recall times that ads have popped up that related to previous searches you’ve made on the web? Or, if you’re a Facebook user, why certain news items or ads are served up to you? This is your filter bubble at work. Continue reading →