Search engine filter bubbles should be popped

If you are going to use the Internet, use it wisely.

Growing evidence shows it feeds us what it thinks we want, not necessarily what we need.

Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, says that search engines filter search results to cater to your favorite past selections.  Pariser cautions this can lead to search engines confining many people within their own preferences and narrowing their worldview.

But don’t worry.  If you follow a few simple steps, you can pop the filter bubble.

Murphy Laps, twice as long

Black ink titled my fresh notebook page with “Five things I noticed,” after taking a lap around the inner walls of Murphy this afternoon.  “This isn’t too bad,” I thought, not realizing I should have brought my running shoes for the three consecutive laps I would take post-list.

Number one, sounds of different shoes walking.  Two:  Room 111’s sign changed, now displaying “Journalism/Mass Communication” on the door.  Three, you must sign the equipment back into the lab.  No exceptions.  And so on.

Meanwhile, my syllabus rests impatiently on my green folder, and I wonder when we will read through that so I can get back outside and in the sunshine.

Instead, we lap again.  What can you hear?  What can you taste?  Is the water from the fountain a little bit metallic?  And we return to our wheely seats to make another list.