The Internet is an information highway. People adopted the Internet to get information about not only a certain topics, but also for news the news didn't cover.
It has grown to an enormous source. We have seen things come and go. Chats, forums, social networks etc.
Although they all still exist, they are being taken over by more elaborate ways to make the Internet more like the outside world, but cater to you specifically.
This is fine and expected, but there is big differences between the Internet and real life.
Is the Internet not real life? My opinion it's as real as it gets. But. On the other hand it isn't. This is a fairy tale world made to cater to you.
Take Facebook for example. As of now Facebook will categorize you. It has many algorithms to set you in a category.
It picks your personality based on your searches, friends, likes, links you click, videos you watch, photos you take and many more.
If your republican, Facebook will slowly filter any democrat from your feed. It knows who you are so decides what is best for you.
Facebook has one button used by many people. It is called a like button. This is used to show the original poster that you liked the content of he/she posted.
There is no dislike button. Why you say?
Because no one wants to use a social network that allows people to dislike what you post.
It's catering to your fantasy world. Nothing, but compliments to allow you to keep reaching for more.
This all doesn't matter much at all, but the science behind it does. The Internet is evolving itself to be the biggest judge of us all.
Google. The alpha omega? Google rules the Internet. But not always did. Look how google has made itself what it is today.
It has the biggest power of them all. It knows what your thinking and what you want to know. Because it is a search engine.
You give it information every time you search. You type in a topic and you get sites that talk about this topic. You also give it "without knowing" a name, ip, what device your on, and many more things the average are unaware of.
Google now is implementing this into searching. If I search a topic it decides the kind of person I am. My personality and what I like through algorithms. Then it will give results that "it" thinks caters more to me.
Is this a good thing? Is this real?
I have a great following on twitter so I decided to do a little test. Majority of my followers are iPhone users. I simply asked them to search iPhone, and send screenshots of this search.
To my surprise they were all the same. Only difference was other countries. Makes since because you don't want to search iPhone and get a US seller and you live in the UK. This is one algorithm I like.
That's not the end of my testing. I did pick a very popular topic. iPhone. Maybe that would be why they are the same.
So I went to the library. Signed in 3 computers under 3 different google usernames.
I then searched. What I found out is the searches did vary. Not by much, but enough to tell a difference. Ads most were completely different. Sites although I didn't find one site that wasn't listed on either search. They were organized very differently. Even the "Top" topics were further in the search rather than at the top.
Why this does not effect the iPhone I dunno. Like I said it may have been the topic "iPhone" I personally noticed a change in my search results around September. After a week or so they seemed to be more like my older searches. This is around the same time hummingbird algorithm was put into effect. I'm guessing they had to refill there database.
None of this surprises me. Just as when you call a calling center. It says this conversation may be recorded. We all heard this. Most thought that some big boss was reviewing these tapes to make sure the calling center, was doing there job.
That's not the case either. They use this information and send it through algorithms. Within minutes they are able to tell by multiple things your personality.
This is even sometimes used and you are connected to a person that is more like your personality. If you have something in common it's a lot easier to sell you something.
Ads. Why when you search for mulch, a majority of ads will now display ads for mulch.
That ad on the website was not chosen by the website owner. The ad system itself uses algorithms to show certain ads you're more likely to click on.
There is no main reason for this post. Just my observations and personal research. What do you think?
Take away notes.
Be aware that a lot of information may never reach you.
Do you really want to use a social network and give so much power to a company that blocks your friends from telling you something? If I'm a Christian and you're atheist. We can't be friends online? That's really how I see it, and I do not agree with this at all.
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