Ever wondered how your computer knows what you want?
You’ve just been googling a holiday in Hawaii, and within minutes, an advert for a Hawaii hotel sale pops up in your news feed or in between articles on a web page.
Your instant thought is "Oh my god, it’s meant to be! I can’t believe I was just thinking about a holiday to Hawaii and now a sale is right in front of me. I’m totally going to book right now!" That my friends is Google manipulating your thoughts.
Every internet search you make is being traced, it has got to the point where we are now in a filter bubble. A bubble that has been altered to show us what it has determined is on our mind, through comments and searches we make online.
So are we now stuck in this bubble? Are we being filtered so much that important stories and headlines aren’t coming through to us, it only filtering what it feels we want to see and tailoring our results to match?
This is a scary thought, and it could completely change the way you think. It also changes your social life, because Facebook tailors your news feed to suit your lifestyle; if you aren’t a mother you’ll find that your friends with kids won’t pop up in your feed as often.
There is only one sure way around this, make sure you step away from your computer every now and again. Buy and read a newspaper, call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while and make sure you channel flick on the TV.
There is one huge benefit to the Google filter bubble though. Having the ability to give us the results we want by filtering out the stuff we don’t need. It saves time and makes decisions easier, we often say "I wish you could just read my mind, it would be so much easier", well you got your wish. Google is literally reading your mind, I suggest you stop day dreaming about 50 Shades of Grey while you’re at work.
