If there’s one thing that aging newspapermen, self-righteous politicians, and “civic-minded” pundits love to decry, it’s the pernicious effects on modern man of the internet echo chamber. To hear the neo-Nostradamus types tell it, the partisan love of dialogue ranks just below Pig-pen’s ablutomania, but with far less entertaining effects. We apparently are but days away from a perfectly polarized polity, each end of the spectrum deafened by the screams of its most extreme members, blissfully unaware of counterarguments as a concept, and quite unconcerned with the deleterious effects on the public square and political practices. In 750 word increments, these prophets pick up Laocoön’s legacy and beg us not to be seduced by the gift of the intertubes, lest our downfall result.
This is, of course, nonsense.
Like many cherished fears, however, there is a shred of truth in what these folks say. Since the critics bewailing our echo chamber culture refuse to articulate it cogently, permit me to restate their fears more accurately: innocuous and even mild personal preferences can have disastrous consequences. Consider this brilliant clip by Tim Harford, where he restates Schelling’s segregation model. Even a very mild preference for one’s own race — or even just a desire not to be a minority in one’s neighborhood — creates a seemingly ineluctable drive to self-segregate. Similarly, one might argue, the internet creates zones of self-segregation, with similarly harmful effects (insert your pet evil here).
Before refuting this restated concern, it’s worth noting that this is only concerning because of how it is stated. Remember that our original fear-mongering theorists typically point to information consumption as the source of the problem: “partisans will only read their own partisan blogs.” So, the problem, as first posited, is that people with strong opinions specialize in a specific kind of knowledge, be it conservative orthodoxy or liberal dogmatism. Consider how ludicrous that complaint sounds when transposed to any other fact of life: “my cardiologist won’t stop reading about cardiology,” or “that damned poet reads only poetry all the time. He’s a verse-extremist!”
The comparison also applies in more contentious disciplines. “Oh no, architecture is irreparably damaged because the Bauhaus diehards won’t give up and talk to the organic deconstructivists!” Alternatively, “you know why I hate the Pope: he talks about Catholicism all the time. He’s too partisan: there are 37,000 other Christian denominations that he only throws an ecumenical bone from time to time. He needs to stop reading so much Catholic theology and read some more Wiccan tracts or spend an equal amount of time with the Pāli Tipitaka.” See what I mean?
But let’s just assume there is something wrong with getting all your water from just one spring. Should we be worried about the inevitable hypernatremia that will result from people downing too much of the deliciously one-sided Dasani? In a word: no.
A couple years ago, Tyler Cowen pointed out why we haven’t arrived at a completely segregated dystopia.
Schelling would be the first to admit he created only a partial model. Human genetics show more and more out-breeding over time. Those first cousins just don’t cut it any more. No, the earth isn’t flat but outmigration is increasing and many more people are choosing to live as minorities in foreign lands, most of all in the EU. I live in Northern Virginia, one of the most successfully integrated regions of the United States, whether it be along lines of race, religion, or nationality. Latino arrivals are concentrated in the American Southwest but over time they are spreading out to many other states. What is the segregation model missing?
Gains from trade, in a nutshell. If I’m the first Mexican to arrive in North Carolina, yes maybe I feel lonely. But I also can fill some empty economic niches and overall it may beat East L.A. Other immigrants will follow, but if too many come some of them will move on to South Carolina.
Writ generally, there are other forces counteracting the impulse to racial isolation. The same is true for information consumption. These pressures divide into three categories: 1) the nature of the medium, 2) other people, and 3) economic opportunities.
The Nature of the Medium
The tools exist today to paint the world in rhetorical monotone. But that’s always been the case. As the Brits’ broadsheets demonstrate, people have sought out organs of thought that correspond to their beliefs for quite some time. Nonetheless, we don’t refer to the great newspaper polarization engendered by the 1st Viscount Northcliffe.
But if you weren’t able to create a hyper-polarized debate in ages where the printed word was the only means of getting your news, how on earth are you supposed to in today’s link-happy world? Pre-internet, if you subscribed to Le Figaro, you could keep that socialist rag Le Monde, and all that it stood for, out of your Parisian flat.
It’s harder today, than at any time in the past, to isolate yourself politically, at least in terms of information consumption. Even the most rabidly partisan blogs tend to abide by the internet custom of linking back to the piece/idea/news coverage they are criticizing. Thus, the maligned other is a click away. Worse, that click takes you not just to a single piece, but to a site where you’re surrounded by a garden of forbidden fruit: dozens of pictures and links surrounding the main text, tempting you into a world curated by the opposition’s editors.
Even partisan news aggregators have the same effect. Consider the Drudge Report, ostensibly where conservative drones go to be spoon fed their daily dose of outrage. As a user of any duration can attest, slanted headlines aside, much of the news is generated by decidedly un-reactionary sites like the Guardian or, GASP, the New York Times.
Other People
If the porousness of the internet wasn’t enough, it’s hard to avoid the opinions of other people, especially thanks to the internet. And damned if the opinions of others don’t constitute another flavor in our information soup.
In most urban/suburban settings, it’s exceedingly difficult to have more than four friends without running into someone who plays for the other team (politically!). That’s because we make friends in a variety of situations where, unlike RSS feeds, it’s hard to screen narrowly for ideological affiliation: class, the softball team, church, work, other Little League parents, what have you. And unless you are like a friend I made on the bus, your conversations will likely extend beyond your choice of breakfast foods, the merits and defects of the 302 versus the 2, and how few hobbies you have.
The internet, of course, makes this phenomenon even more inescapable. My old college roommate, bless his heart, has increasingly divergent (and incoherent) political views. As a result my otherwise pure information pools are poisoned by his views as he shares items on Google Reader and Facebook. Nor is he the only one. Those darned echo chambers are just really difficult to maintain.
Economic Opportunities
The effect of outmigration on segregation parallels information isolation not just in form, but also substance. First, there is a necessary moderating corollary: when the echo chamber effect starts turning you into a rabid, alienating ideologue there will be real-world consequences. Unless you happen to work in an entirely monolithic institution, becoming known as a polemical person is unlikely to expedite climbing the company ladder or heighten your profile. What works at as a MoveOn.org staffer is unlikely to be a helpful character trait in any corporate environment or any business that needs to remain apolitical to appeal to a diverse clientele (say, a paper company).
Second, hinted at above, in any kind of business environment, your clientele will not always share your beliefs. If you happen to sell Hillary Clinton nutcrackers, it probably doesn’t matter if you are a World Nut Daily-quoting looney tune. The overwhelming majority of us don’t have that luxury. Say you run an organic food store. The majority of your clients may be near-socialist vegans. Even if you happen to be a die-hard free marketeer, you need to demonstrate that you respect your clients and be willing to state that reasonable minds can differ.
In both cases, economic pressures exist to find articulate, persuasive, and respectful means of stating your views, while cultivating a respect for others. Not only will this drive individuals to find content that matches those adjectives, it will directly affect how they interact with others, mitigating the negative externalities the echo chamber set is still bewailing.
Final Note
As I have made abundantly clear, the idea that we’re entering an age of information isolation is patently, even risibly false. That negative assertion should be couched by a positive claim and a caveat.
As mentioned in asides above, there is an assumption of a relatively cosmopolitan environment having positive effects on people who would otherwise isolate themselves. However, you won’t encounter opposing views at church, or need to worry about how strident your tone is at work, if you live in an ideologically segregated community. This problem is real and not to be underestimated. For perhaps the most engaging and thorough discussion of this problem, check out The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. Physical segregation, though, is a different problem altogether, and should be distinguished from claims of the ill effects of the internet.
A positive claim: information consumption through the internet does have pernicious effects, but not in the way commonly cited. Next week, in Part II, I’ll explore how we should think about the news, views, and yoohoos we consume through the web, and what is so terrible.