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Course: Social media literacy > Unit 2
Lesson 3: How the attention economy distorts our views and our worldActivity: Comparing social media feeds
Contrast the different realities available on social media
🤳 ACTIVITY:
Find a partner, and open up the same social media app. Scroll through their main feed (and please refrain from looking at any of their notifications, messages, etc.).
- What is the same about your feeds?
- What is different?
Now, think about someone who deeply disagrees with you about some of your core beliefs.
- How might their feed look different from yours?
- What do you think their feed does to their view of the world?
- What does your feed do to your view of the world?
🚫 NOTE:
Please don’t share your feed or read someone else’s feed without mutual consent. If you’re working in a group, ask for two volunteers to share their feeds with each other and get permission to share their answers with the group.
Consider the big picture. What happens to our collective view of reality when we’re each receiving different information that’s motivated by these incentives? When we’re in competition to get the most likes and shares? And when the most sensational content is what helps us feel seen?
We quickly end up on a path to a distorted view of both reality and ourselves.
Want to join the conversation?
- Except, what about the birds and the bees ?(3 votes)
- Why are some people's feeds different if we have the same interests?(2 votes)
- The way algorithms work on many of these sites is based on many varied characteristics, which are not always based on interests; it considers age, state, gender, and location, to name a few.(3 votes)
- I wonder why these apps do this(2 votes)
- cause the people RUNNING those apps are controlling you to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll LOOKING for comments, likes, or dislikes. hope that helps.(2 votes)
- How is he still on social media on his phone?(2 votes)
- fake image ai generated look at his right foot it is a knob(2 votes)
- How does this work?(2 votes)
- i cant do this i dont have anyone to do it with :( but i have seen her fyp and she has seen mine. we like the same things but have a diff fyp. why is that?(2 votes)
- more cars less animals(2 votes)
- How to just take a break from soical media?(1 vote)
- why do apps do that(1 vote)