Filter Bubbles in Specific Feeds

I am both pro and anti “filter bubble”. I think it is great to mainly see content that you enjoy and consistently search for, yet at the same time, I think it restricts us from learning and expanding our knowledge about other topics. I would say that my filter bubble mainly consists of pug videos/pictures, fashion articles and Tasty cooking videos.

 I don’t have an extremely political filter bubble like some people might have in light of the recent election, because I am not an extremely political person, and never really search for those topics on the internet. I do often encounter opinions other than my own on my various media feeds, especially Facebook. For some reason, Facebook appears to be the most common place for the people that I follow to post about their political views. It makes sense – you don’t have a character count restriction, mostly older people use the site than younger people (i.e. people who can vote), etc. As a person who does not post these types of status’ on my feed, basically every political post I see I would consider a different opinion than my own, since I don’t post about those things. I have only unfriended people on Facebook for their opposing viewpoints, but I have not unfollowed anyone on any other social media platforms because of it, since I never really see anything extremely offensive on other sites. I have no unfriended people because of their specific political opinions, rather I have unfriended them because of the consistently ignorant post that they create that are nothing more than either complaining or trying to tell everyone else why they are right and everyone else is wrong, which is a different ideological leaning than my own. 

Filter bubbles are still kind of confusing to me, because even though I don’t post anything political, I can never check my Facebook feed without seeing someone’s political opinion in a post. This almost makes me feel that these opinions can be pressured onto people instead of letting them form their own view points, because they see it constantly, even if they aren’t involved, like myself. Filter bubbles can be positive for people who enjoy a cute baby pug or 6 ways to make chicken, like myself, but they can also be negative for people who want to expand their ideas, because it doesn’t give them any wiggle room to explore everything the internet has to offer.