By Tilley C, Year 10 Digital Leader

Have you ever been online discussing or searching for something- maybe a brand or show- and then later find it coming up on your social media feed? This is because (social media) algorithms try to feed you content that it thinks you’ll be interested in. A user who spends more time on social media is a user who is more valuable to large corporations. Corporations want your time, as this gives them income.

When this happens repeatedly, you get a stream of media tailored to your interests and opinions, leading to a very one-sided worldview; when all of your beliefs are confirmed by others, you tend to think you are always right. This can have further negative consequences, including the spread of misinformation and social polarisation (the normalisation of harmful concepts.)

This phenomenon is called the echo chamber.

How can I escape?

• Actively question what you read- do you really agree with it, and is it actually true?
• Check your facts with multiple and trustworthy sources.
• Regularly interact with viewpoints and opinions that differ from your own.

About the Digital Leaders

Your Digital Leads are a group of five year 10s: Alice W, Jaspreet G, Tilley C, Georgia C and Nadia M-S.  We meet up every week to discuss matters related to how we can improve our school’s outlook, use of and knowledge about relevant and upcoming digital technologies.

So far, we’ve prepared some videos to help teachers with using the new whiteboards and completed two assemblies. A few of us are also working on a study to investigate the cognitive and emotional impact of social media usage, which year 9 to year 13 have been surveyed on. We’re currently focused on researching new tech and working to improve e-safety and paper waste within the school. Next week, we are leading a PSHCEE session with Year 7 to help them understand the concept of their digital footprint. We also wrote this article to help our school community better understand the effect of the echo chamber,  how to use the internet conscious of misinformation and a little more about the work that we are doing in the school. We hope to write more articles in the future.