Homophily

     Ted Talk by Eli Parsier, the article Mind Control and the internet by Sue Halpern, and the article Clive Thompson On high Bandwidths all have one recurring theme and that is Homophily. Homophily is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others; people tend to form connections with others who similar to them in characteristics such as socioeconomic status, values, beliefs, and attitudes. One of the major downsides to homophily is that we end up encountering only news and opinions that reinforce what we already believe; I guess in a sense our ideas become biased relying on very similar sources.

          The internet has become one of the biggest sources of information for the masses and companies like Facebook and google are well aware of it and cater their information and adversting to indivual users. For example are searching for specific product , and than you go on yahoo to read an article you will see an ad for the product you previously searched for. Google also saves your reading habits and than gives you links to articles  that discuss same topics therefore strengthening your beliefs in what you are already leaning towards. The World Wide Web is a great place for knowledge we as consumers just need to be more open minded and unbiased.