2 Traps You Need to Avoid with Web-Awareness Tools
Posted by Eric Wilson on Tue, Dec 27, 2011
What is Web-Awareness?
Web-Awareness, a condition where one is effectively aware of “what’s going on” regarding a particular topic or subject, is an ever-growing challenge as a result information overload. It’s really hard to keep up with the massive volume of information that is available as a result of the increasing ease of publishing to the Web. There is a positive side, however, to the astronomical growth of information on the Web - much more information can help provide new insights and perspectives on topics that are often thought to be mastered. In order to help deal with the volume of information, there are an increasingly growing number of tools available today. Understanding the underlying premise of such tools is important in determining how effective they are in providing real awareness.
What are Thinking Traps?
Specialized tools aim to help overcome information overload. One of the principal handicaps to Web-awareness however lies in avoiding their reinforcement of “thinking traps”. Luciano Passuello, writes at LiteMind.com “exploring ways to use our minds efficiently”. His posts on “thinking traps” relate closely with Web-Awareness. The use of tools to overcome information overload may often reinforce some of the traps Passuello describes.
The Confirmation Trap: Seeing What You Want To See
- Problem: Passuello describes this trap as “looking for information that will most likely support your initial point of view — while conveniently avoiding information that challenges it”. One of the tools and techniques used by many are social networks to help overcome, or at least gain the illusion that they are overcoming, information overload and secure “Web-awareness”. A social network is, generally speaking, a collection of like-minded thinkers. More often than not, relying upon a social network is an extremely convenient way of seeing what you want to see and not being bothered by information challenging your existing perspective on a topic.
- Recommendation: Among Passuello’s recommendations; “expose yourself to conflicting information”. When considering tools to combat information overload in order to understand “what’s going on”, one of the most important considerations is that of bias.
- Tools: Many tools attempt to infer the user’s values and interests. If these tools are actually successful in so doing this is a potential catastrophe in connection with really knowing what is going on. These tools will strive to present the user with information that matches their predispositions and avoids shaking the user’s biases. Comfort wins, understanding looses.
The Conformity Trap: Everybody Else Is Doing It
- Problem: “Even if we hate to admit it, other people’s actions do heavily influence ours. We fear looking dumb: failing along with many people is frequently not considered a big deal, but when we fail alone we must take all the heat ourselves. There’s always peer pressure to adopt the behaviors of the groups we’re in.”
- Recommendation - “Discount the influence of others: When analyzing information, shield yourself from others’ opinions — at least at first”. Real awareness and understanding of what is going on requires independence of thought from that of “the herd”. At the highest level, we need to make our own judgments about the information we collect and how it improves our awareness and understanding. Looking for awareness is different from looking for reassurance. We have to expose ourselves to information that goes against our beliefs and we have to insulate ourselves from conformity of thought.
- Tools: Tools that present information based upon popularity ranking are not very effective when it comes to effective awareness of what’s going on. An item among the mass of information relating to a given topic may not be “popular”, i.e., a Web page may not have been visited by many people – but it may be highly relevant. Relevancy determined by popularity will always reinforce the conformity trap and detract from effective understanding and awareness.
Our Approach to Overcoming Thinking Traps
Darwin Awareness Engine is designed to fetch and present information relating to a particular topic from the Web without bias. This is accomplished through its use of mathematical correlations among terms used within the content, or “organic curation”. The information is “self organizing” without any human intervention either in selection, or as a reference. The presentation is inherently unbiased.
Further, Darwin makes no inference as to what is, or isn’t, relevant to the user. It embodies the principle that only the user knows what is relevant. Darwin simply presents what is emerging and what is important (volumetrically) around a given topic, without bias, and saves users time in their effort to makes sense of the information available.
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Related articles:
Managing Information Overload: 5 Reasons a Chief Content Officer Can Help
Content Curation: 5 Different Approaches
6 Traits of Highly Effective Discovery Engines
Content Curation: Why Detecting Emerging Patterns is Crucial
Search and Discovery: How They Complement Each Other
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