Depth 1 · 34 s
The bread group
Daniel joins a friendly online group for bread bakers - and slowly stops listening to anyone outside it. Two kinds of closed circle, the bubble and the echo chamber, and why one is much harder to leave.
About this video
Daniel joins an online group for people who bake bread. At first it is lovely: recipes, photos, friendly tips. After a while he notices that every post says the same things about how to bake. When a new member mentions another way, the others reply: don't listen to the bakers on TV, they're paid to say that, only we tell the truth about bread. Daniel stops listening to anyone outside the group. Is he learning more, or less?
The American philosopher C. Thi Nguyen pointed out in 2018 that a group can close itself off in two different ways. In a bubble, you only hear people who think like you, not because you were told to, but because of who you follow and talk to. Other voices are just missing. In an echo chamber, you hear the same voices repeated back, and you have also been taught to distrust everyone outside: they are liars, paid, or fools. Other voices aren't just missing; they are shut out.
The difference matters. A bubble is easy to pop: show the people inside a different view, and they can think about it. An echo chamber is much harder, because the people inside already have a reason ready to ignore anyone outside: of course they would say that. The more outsiders disagree, the more it seems to prove the group right. A chamber also breaks independent sources: fifty members saying the same thing feels like fifty reasons, but if they all learned it from the same few voices, it is closer to one reason repeated fifty times. To leave a chamber, you first have to trust someone outside it again. This video goes with the A Closed Circle lesson of Knowledge Level 2 on Knaph.
This video shows depth 1 of Bubbles and echo chambers.
Learn Bubbles and echo chambersTranscript
- 0:00Daniel joins a bread group. Lovely at first. Then every post says the same.
- 0:05A bubble: other voices are just missing. Nobody happens to bring them in.
- 0:11An echo chamber shuts them out. Don't listen to outsiders, they're paid.
- 0:17Show a bubble another view and it pops. A chamber bounces it off.
- 0:23Fifty members repeating a few voices are close to one reason, not fifty.
- 0:29To leave a chamber, first trust someone outside again.