Have you ever watched a short video and couldn’t stop, and even sometimes you have something to do, but you still watch it for a few hours?

Do you find that a lot of information is sent to your mobile phone every day, but it is difficult for you to identify the authenticity?

Do you find that a lot of information is not the truth of what you see, but what other people want you to see?

Do you feel that online games, instant lottery, entertainment information make you more and more obsessed?

The network system constantly pushes the information you like along your mind. And the "intelligent" big data will continuously push the new information that suits you the most through algorithms based on your past information usage habits and historical behaviors, such as browsing, likes, interaction, and sharing.

This is the " echo chamber effect ".

01 People with closed minds are prone to fall into the echo chamber effect

The echo chamber effect was coined by psychologist Keith Sunstein. It refers to the repeated repetition of similar voices in a relatively closed environment, and repeated in exaggerated or other distorted forms, so that people in self-enclosed mentality think that these are all the information.

Description of echo chamber effect: While network technology brings us convenience, it also creates a closed and highly homogeneous "echo chamber" for people.

The echo chamber effect has its inherent reasons.

When a person is in a network environment with roughly the same way of thinking as himself, it will make people feel relaxed and comfortable, because there are a lot of commonalities between people and the environment, which can reduce the mental activity of a person's thinking, and can easily help people get favorites. information.

Plus, when the online environment presents your ideas, you have a sense of being proven; it reinforces you by making you feel powerful, smart, and “know” and “own” a lot The point of view makes you feel that you belong to this network environment and gain a great sense of belonging, which is further inseparable from this network environment.

It's a "pleasant" feeling that you can stay together, prove each other, feel "right" and "valued" for each other.

Many people are addicted to the Internet, mainly for these reasons.

02 The role of echo chambers in promoting positive values

Addicted to the phenomenon of the Internet, let's analyze it objectively.

If your values ​​are positive and full of sunshine, then this kind of echo chamber will strengthen and enhance you, making you more professional and vertical. some business.

As said in Lao Tzu's Virtue and Taoism: Good Views : " If you cultivate your body, your virtue is true; if you cultivate your family, you will have more than one virtue; if you cultivate your hometown, your virtue will be long; if you cultivate a country, your virtue will be abundant; if you cultivate in the world, you will be rich in virtue. Its De Naibo.

Look at the body in terms of body, look at the family in terms of family, look at the township in terms of the country, look at the state in terms of the state, and view the world in terms of the world.

How do I know the world is natural? with this. "

The character and way of thinking formed by the good practice of moral cultivation can not only truly change one's life, reduce and prevent difficulties, improve the quality of one's work, life and study, but also truly improve oneself and become a person who truly understands one's own life. meaningful people.

When you understand your own life, you can benefit your family and the people around you through your professional knowledge, and establish correct and beautiful values. Even in his own company. Self-managed teams can also grow. Get happiness and joy.

You can also use the Internet to find a confidant who thinks the same way as you, make a friend with similar values ​​to yours, and work in a place where other people think the same as you.

The above is the positive effect of the echo chamber.

03 The echo chamber accelerates the decline of negative values

If a person's values ​​are biased towards selfishness, narrow-mindedness, profit-seeking, lack of integrity, and bravery, then the online information you like to contact will also be biased towards these.

For example, in order to retain people, early application software will attract users with a lot of vulgar surface information. Once a person clicks on a certain type of article, the machine will label the user as curious and vulgar, and repeat similar content.

Vulgar content is recommended more because of its receptivity. Once a person is interested in reading, they will encounter repeated pushes.

When a person is under the anesthesia effect of the information on the surface of the media, he constantly weakens his own thinking consciousness, resulting in a sense of dependence. When serious aesthetics are drowned out by joyful ugliness, users continue to chew on machine-recommended information and strengthen their inherent content orientation, which can easily form a vicious circle.

The more you think without thinking, and the less you don’t break the casserole and ask to the end, the less your theoretical system will function properly, because your brain is only in the knowledge learning of appearances to complete specific tasks. Instead, they will be driven by the flow of outside interests.

In this environment, it is increasingly difficult to change the way of thinking. You effectively cut yourself off from a different world, and you and your friends smugly decide that what other people think is terribly wrong. And that means you're reluctant to change your opinion, because in the eyes of your friends, change means a big mistake, and it's obviously not a good feeling to be denied by your friends.

04 Conduct "critical thinking" and jump out of the information echo chamber

We need to find a corresponding basis for our independent opinions and think critically about different things and voices. Many people have a misunderstanding of critical thinking, thinking that this way of thinking and expressing is to criticize the other person.

In fact, critical thinking is a technique for implementing one's own independent opinion. It refers to "a method of thinking that does not easily follow the ideas of others, but at the same time puts forward one's own opinions".

It's not that someone else went abroad to study and came back for a promotion and a salary increase. You have to go abroad to learn something.

It's not that others have made a lot of money by resigning as a civil servant to start a business. You should also resign quickly and go to sea to do business.

It's not that other people get up early every day to write and make money and become famous, so you must get up early every day.

It's not what other people are reading, you must also read some books.

Because, with the increase of knowledge and experience, you will constantly update your thoughts in your heart.

When you are overwhelmed by the constant stream of information on the Internet, once you enable critical thinking, you can always find loopholes or defects in the information. This psychological negation will help you wake up quickly, and then positive values ​​will take control Take the initiative and reflect on whether you are far from the original intention, whether you are nostalgic for the Internet and forget the original purpose.

A person who often wakes up and reflects can easily prevent falling into the information echo chamber, but keep a clear head all the time.

The greatest charm of critical thinking is that it not only carefully judges the information itself and the opinions of others, but also carefully considers one's own opinions and ideas, and then comes to the most objective answer.

05To break the echo chamber effect, but also to establish a good information literacy

Immanuel Kant said: " If people are not free, the biggest reason is that their thoughts are not free. If they are not good at independent thinking, they will always be carried away by the thoughts around them. Because freedom is not what you want to do, it is Do what you don't want to do, but don't do it. "

We need to break the echo chamber, expand our cognitive scope, and avoid the trouble of negative network information. We also need to improve our information literacy and improve our personal ability to judge, interpret, and retrieve effective information from media information.

When we have solid positive values, we can enhance our ability to distinguish information, distinguish the authenticity from the fragmented and complicated information, and share valuable information instead of acting as a helper for negative information on the Internet. pusher.

For example, when I write and comment on the Internet, I first consider that the idea of ​​the article must lead people to be beautiful, kind, upright, and true. After others read it, it will only solve the confusion in one aspect, and it is best to psychologically The reasons are analyzed from the perspectives of science, philosophy and sociology, and some suggestions are given.

The advantage of this is to first establish my own positive values ​​through self-output, and the first to benefit is myself. This kind of value can make me develop antibodies to negative information on the Internet, and at the same time, I can identify the value of online information at a glance. Reduce time loss.

06Cultivating hobbies is the guarantee to break the echo chamber effect

Sometimes I also swipe my phone, and after a long time, my reading task is not completed, or the frame of the next article flashes in my mind.

Because I have read Laozi De Daojing for a long time and found that this book can guide my writing and broaden my thinking, so I often quote it in articles.

Because my reading "Laozi De Daojing" is no longer a general interest, let alone a hobby in the general sense, but a rise to the level of interest, which guides me to open up my writing ideas and inspires and solves writing puzzles.

This escalates from ordinary reading to hobbies, and then to guiding strategies.

Just like when I was analyzing how to break the echo chamber effect period, I suddenly thought of a paragraph in "Lao Tzu's Virtue and Taoism Kuncheng":

"The Dao is great, the sky is great, the earth is great, and the king is also great.

There are four great kingdoms, and the king occupies one.

People follow the earth, the earth follows the sky, the heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows the nature. "

I suddenly sighed: It turns out that the world is very vast, and life is short, so we need to cherish time, and then sigh: Time is precious, we can't waste time!

Summarize:

The above strategies for getting out of the information echo chamber are all analyzed from the perspective of human psychology. Our psychology has truly changed, and by establishing a strong positive cognition, we will keep the bottom line and will not be easily locked into the information echo chamber.

I hope my analysis today has inspired you.