Facebook advertisement expert Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth. Christian Charisius/PA Images. All rights reserved.In the last year the concept of the ‘filter bubble’, developed by Eli Pariser back in 2011, suddenly seemed quite urgent. I probably don’t need to say why. Its frequent use meant that it even became a cliche of sorts. In contrast to this popular vision of how social media limits our window on the world, Jamie Bartlett has used a short piece to explore why the ‘backfire effect’ is a better way for understanding the damage that has been done to political debate.
Rarely are people persuaded to change their minds by ideas or arguments that run counter to their established notions.
In this case, the ‘backfire effect’ is used to describe how our encounters with opposing views actually reinforce our own existing views — rarely are people persuaded to change their minds by ideas or arguments that run counter to their established notions. Bartlett’s intervention neatly describes how this concept can be used to understand social media interactions. One key point he makes is that rather than simply filtering out alternative points of view, social media constantly present us with views that frustrate, annoy or anger us.
