“In theory, “preferences for broader knowledge, or even randomized information, can also be indulged.”  In reality though, our slight bias in favor of similarity over dissimiliarty is difficult, if not impossible to eradicate.  It’s part of human nature.  Not surprisingly, then, Brynjolfsson and Van Alstyne report that their model indicates, in a direct echo of Schelling’s findings, that “other factors being equal, all that is required to reduce integration in most cases is that preferred interactions are more focused than existing interactions.”  If, in othe words, we have even a small inclination to prefer like-minded views and people–to be more “focused” rather than more inclusive–we will tend to create ever more polarized communities online…

…Given how easy it is to find like-minded people and sympathetic ideas on the Internet and given our innate tendency to form homogeneous groups, we can see that “ideological amplification” is likely to be more pervasive online.  Here again, as Brynjolfsson and Van Alystne note in their article, filtering and personalization technologies are likely to magnify the effect.  “Individuals empowered to screen out material that does not conform to their existing preferences may form virtual cliques, insulate themselves from opposing points of view, and reinforce their biases,” they write.  “Indulging these preferences can have the perverse effect of intensifying and hardening pre-existing biases…. The effect is not merely a tendency for members to conform to the group average but a radicalization in which this average moves toward extremes.’”

~Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch, pp. 162-166, W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.

To read Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson’s paper “Global Village or Cyber-Balkans? Modeling and Measuring the Integration of Electronic Communities,” click here.