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WotD: Echo chamber
The notion of living in an echo chamber is not a new one.
Neither is the thought that it is also dangerous.
Newspaper readers have always been loyal readers of one newspaper or another.
However, with the invention and growth of social media, echo chambers have been condensed down to single ideas or topics.
We no longer have to accept exposure to opinions that differ from our own.
We can block them out, and even if we don’t, the algorithms that tech companies use are designed to fill our screens with things we ‘like.’
Therefore, we only hear what we want to hear and believe what we want to think.
I’ve been an avid newspaper reader for as long as I can remember.
I have memories from my junior high school days of spending evenings at the kitchen table reading the local newspaper while listening to the radio.
It was glorious!
The entire world was present before me on a thin sheet of paper.
Whether the headlines were interesting to me or not, I couldn’t help reading them.
I believe I am much better for that experience.
That’s why I try to cover a wide range of topics in the lessons I create for my students.
The more information and alternate and contradictory opinions we expose ourselves to, the better informed we are and the better able to decide for ourselves.
It’s not fun living in a box.
An echo chamber is nothing more than a box filled with what you want to hear, not necessarily the truth.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 69.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.