#11 Key Post

What is CONFIRMATION BIAS? 

March 3, 2021

by Julianna Rigoglioso 

Where do your opinions, beliefs, and values come from? If you're like most people, your beliefs and values form from experience and your personal knowledge. When forming these opinions, as humans we tend to be found guilty in a way where we only listen to information that suits our interests or beliefs. This is called confirmation bias—"the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one's existing beliefs" (Brittanica).  This was first described by Peter Wason in 1960. Confirmation Bias can be completely unintentional; it is human nature to be most interested in information that suits one's beliefs. Nonetheless, confirmation biases result in ignoring inconsistent information because the person is gathering or recalling information selectively. It is hard to change or open one's mind up to opposing information once one has developed an opinion on the issue; the human should be emotionally distant from the issue. In turn, all biases are removed because one is able to take a step back, interpret the information and situation, and make a judgment.  

How Confirmation Bias Works:

Instead of seeking all information and listening to counterarguments, one instead chooses to avoid looking for objective facts. They interpret information that only supports their existing belief. Rather than learning all the facts, they ignore all information that challenges their belief. Now is this something that sounds familiar? 

Sometimes we don't notice, but confirmation bias always has an opportunity to be present in our everyday lives. It is important as a society to notice when you're thinking this way. With the countless news outlets available, we must fact-check our information because let's face it, the media cares more about public reaction than the truth. We must not strictly rely on Instagram or Twitter for our news. I follow political accounts on Instagram; however, I always ensure to research about it elsewhere before I form an opinion or make a claim—and you should too! 

Example of Confirmation Bias

We are all culprits of confirmation bias whether we notice it or not; humans lack a sense of self-awareness sometimes. One example is sorority and fraternity recruitment in college. When students pick between sororities and fraternities, some already have their ideal sorority/fraternity choice—maybe their mom was in that same sorority 30 years ago. Now, say one girl hears a rumor that her top choice sorority hazes and abuses alcohol. She then hears that the school was involved in a conflict with that same sorority regarding a hazing issue years back. However, she claims that's an untruthful rumor and proceeds to rush that sorority, dismissing all negative statements about her top choice. Now, someone completely different, with no knowledge of college Greek life, wants to join and hears those same rumors. Immediately, she is turned off by that group and chooses to not visit the house and meet the girls. This is confirmation bias! First, these two girls are making judgments before even knowing the truth; neither of them has first-hand experience or knowledge. Second, they avoid any other judgments or values other than their own. 

How Confirmation Bias Affects the World:

Confirmation Bias can be positive and negative. It is negative because it creates stereotypes where people will form pre-made judgments based on one's appearance or what they have heard about them. People create judgments about race, ethnicity, religion, social status, wealth. This affects society as a whole; creating a division in our community. Confirmation Bias is judging a book by its cover without not knowing the full story. Your judgments could make you close-minded—unaware of other information or experiences. However, this could also be seen as a positive. These pre-existing judgments could save you from making poor decisions. If someone offered me to smoke pot, I would say no because I don't know how my body will react, to my knowledge it's unhealthy and can cause lung damage. There are people, however, who argue that it helps their anxiety. Now, I don't have any first-hand experience with smoking, nor do I live with anyone who smokes. I don't research about it; however, by my own knowledge, I think it is bad. With this, I form a bias against it. 

I think confirmation bias affects society today more than it's ever had in history: we can thank technology for this. There are countless platforms to receive news and information; therefore, it is important to be aware of the credibility of the sources who created that post. Social media platforms love to encourage confirmation bias. To keep us entertained on their platform, tech companies create algorithms to display content that supports our bias, encouraging stronger and deeper opinions to form. This negatively impacts society and our political system. The media interprets a political issue on way and releases information to the public. The public takes it and runs with it, no matter how truthful it is or not. 

In the end, people like to be right. It can lower one's self-esteem when one is proven wrong. This is another reason people display confirmation bias: to protect their self-esteem and ego. People like to feel good about themselves and knowledge gives people confidence. They want to feel as if they know everything, and their information is always correct. However, life isn't about being correct all the time. Sometimes you need to be wrong so you can recollect your thoughts, find the truth, and become educated. Society must accept this and become more open-minded to issues and values in opposition to their beliefs. 

References:

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/confirmation-bias-examples-in-real-life.html

https://www.britannica.com/science/confirmation-bias

https://fs.blog/2017/05/confirmation-bias/

#10 Blog Post

 Privacy Online and Offline: 

March 1, 2021

by Julianna Rigoglioso 

The Deciet of Connecting Online:  

We are all connected as a society through the World Wide Web. We type our information, otherwise known as personal data, into our computers, iPhones, tablets, and trust it with our lives. Did you know that from your social media posts to your search history, all of it is being tracked? Once something is on the internet, it can never go away. This makes our data is everlasting, it will outlive us all. As a society, "we have lost control over data and our privacy" (Think your email's private? Think again, 1:20). They see what we buy online, what we post about, what games we play, and they even have access to our own "private" email. Even our phone calls are monitored and saved into the company's private data. With this, as technology advances, society loses the idea of privacy itself. This generation is taught at a very young age to post their social lives online and engage in social media. In a Ted Talk, scientist Andy Yen points out that "this is a generation that is not going to remember when data was private," and I find this terrifying (Think your email's private? Think again, 9:37). For me personally, I do enjoy posting on social media; nonetheless, I value my privacy much more. I do not share every minute of my life on my socials. 

Computing has changed everything in the world we live in. Phones and computers are owned by almost everyone and technology companies take advantage of this. It is easy to surveil when the mass population is distracted by their new phone features: like being able to unlock your phone with the touch of a thumb or scan of someone's facial features (known as Apple's Face ID). When I received the new iPhone with a fingerprint unlocking system, I was amazed by the simplicity, convenience, and innovation. Maybe it was my vulnerability talking, or my youthful mental state, however, I never considered the thought my very own fingerprint being stored away and used as data. From facial recognition to Touch ID,  technology companies store and use our personal information for data. These tech companies actually built surveillance features in the core of their network (How to avoid surveillance... with the phone in your pocket, 1:20). Our own cell phones are being monitored. When you are talking on the phone to someone, your call could be monitored by another party. This party could be the government, foreign intelligence service, hacker, or even a foreign government. 

There are some ways around this, though. Some companies have built strong encryption technology that makes surveillance difficult. Apple, for example, claims that iMessage and Facetime Audio calls are very hard to monitor. I always was very suspicious of technology companies and would read about how they monitor our devices and calls. I had no idea that Apple tries to avoid that. When you send a message to another person with an iPhone (this is called iMessaging), it is difficult  to track and wiretap—even Apple can't view your messages. I always thought Apple was the bad guy when it came to technology and monitoring devices because they hold so much power in the country. There are 193 Million iPhones in the US. This means almost 67% of the population own an iPhone. 

After watching "How to avoid surveillance... with the phone in your pocket," I became very skeptical when talking on the phone. It's not that I have anything to conceal, but, the fact that someone could be listening to my argument on the phone with my mother; makes me feel uncomfortable. Technology companies began installing encryption software into their devices; this angered governments from all around the world. The argument that these surveillance features are designed for solving crime investigations does make sense to me. However, but at what cost? These surveillance systems, which were designed to respond to lawful surveillance requests from the police, are being hacked anyway by other nations' governments. For example, in 2009, Google and Microsoft's systems were hacked and compromised by the Chinese government.  There is no way of controlling who goes through the data; good or bad people. Although encryption may make it more difficult for the police to catch these "bad guys," at least we won't live in a world where our personal information could be potentially intercepted by a terrorist, criminal, or opposing governments. 

Privacy must become more accessible to society. Nonetheless, if we want our privacy, we must act together and use encrypted communication tools. The entire globe must start taking steps to be as secure as possible. I chose my privacy over everything...and you should too.