The Internet could potentially open the door to universal knowledge for us. Why instead do we often find ourselves wandering through the same topics, interacting with the same people, and discovering things we largely already know? Because content personalization algorithms have stuffed us into a semantic funnel.
This means that by carefully analyzing our searches, the pages we consult, and the videos we watch, platforms have built for us a tailor-made information environment, which instead of stimulating us to discover new things, tends to solicit and confirm our interests, opinions (including political ones), and habits.
And the reason for the semantic funnel is not dictated by a focus of online platforms on our tastes or interests, but rather to make sure that their offerings, which by the way are deteriorating us intellectually, facilitate and thus encourage us to stay on their pages for as long as possible.
Paid digital platforms, such as Netflix or Itunes, exploit their knowledge of user profiles to recommend the same types of content again and again in order to optimize sales and profits.
But quantity of information does not match quality. Too much information converging on the same opinions can foster dangerous forms of extremism and radicalization; lack of divergent ideas, moreover, certainly reduces critical sense and democratic pluralism.
We need to aim for qualitative growth in the content consulted on the Web, a personalization for cultural and cognitive development and not for pure entertainment.
Also because time is a precious and increasingly rare resource.
The opportunity to read books or participate in debates is shrinking mainly because the time needed for these thought-provoking and culturally growing activities is now increasingly spent (or wasted) interacting in the personalized funnels of social media and our smartphones.
Italiano