homophily

& all that goes along with it

"The term "gated community" simply refers to any type of neighborhood that has controlled access using one or more gates that residents or visitors must pass through. Some have a guard booth with a security staff to ensure that only residents or guests pass the gate, while others use an automatic gate that residents must open with a key card or remote control. Most gated communities have a name and a clear geographic definition as marked by the barriers and gates that control access to the area."

"The act or process of segregating: the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area, by barriers to social intercourse, by separate educational facilities, or by other discriminatory means."

districts aiming at gathering people from the same social class

walls keep the poor together and set them apart from the wealthy people
who live an opulent life

"whether we like it or not, polarisation is about communities, just segregated ones: from groups that spread the same fake news (while accusing others of doing so)
to the rise of extreme political groups."

"The Columbian-Lavanburg survey explored the social dynamics of the planned public housing community through residents’ responses to over one hundred different questions. They tabulated patterns of friendship between people with different professions, educational attainments, and places of birth. They inquired about how residents used common spaces of the housing project, and whether they belonged to neighbourhood social organisations. They asked about residents’ expectations prior to moving to the housing project, who they associated with most frequently while living there, and what their impressions were of the level of political engagement in their community."

"The results published in 1945 by Merton and Lazarsfeld focused on two questions (of this preliminary range of questions). 25. Do you think colored and white people should live together in housing projects? 26. On the whole, do you think that colored and white in the Village get along pretty well, or not so well? "

https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/are-friends-electric/289193/homophily-the-urban-history-of-an-algorithm/

"we are segregated because networks put us into virtually gated communities"

“Biases are the stories we make up about people before we know who they actually are. But how are we going to know who they are, when we’ve been told to avoid and be afraid of them?” (Verna Myers)

Just because we’re not consciously aware of biases, doesn’t mean we’re off-the-hook. Just because we’re not consciously aware, doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do about it. Just because we’re not consciously aware of biases, doesn’t mean it’s not pervasive.

We still are accountable for our (un)learning, learning, interrogating, and changing these biases. Biases are inevitable, BUT it doesn’t mean they’re not immovable.

“… that your perceptions, both our visual and our physical perceptions and also our social perceptions of other people and situations in life and business are very much affected by our unconscious. That what we perceive, isn’t really the data that is literally out there, but it’s a construction that our minds make using our imagination” (Leonard Mlodinow)

example: Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier, who in 1944 was dispatched to the Philippine island Liu Bai with a simple mission. He was to stay there and if the allies were to try to retake the island, his job was to harass them to commit sabotage and otherwise make their live as miserable as possible. He was a dedicated man - he harassed and killed until 1974. BUT the war ended in 1945. Did he not know that the war ended? Certainly he had lots of opportunities to find it out. Philippine authorities realised what is happening and left him leaflets, newspaper, letters from loved ones. The only thing that stopped him fighting was the former commanding officer (that was in 1944 an army major, but in 1974 a bookseller). They brought him there and they had a face-to-face conversation.

So everything that contracted the view that the war is still on he dismissed as enemy propaganda.

"we are wired to make cognitive shortcuts, using past experiences to make assumptions. And you know what happens when we assume. Our unconscious mind can put us on autopilot, determining where we sit, who we eat lunch with, who we turn to for advice and who we choose to offer a helping hand."

terms: homophily, confirmation bias,

naive realism, echo chamber, filter bubble, ..

"Individuals, almost constantly, find themselves interacting with
others and forming ties with them. These ties shape the individual’s
self-concept and define his/her identity, desires, beliefs and opinions."

"Although there is no consensus definition for echo chambers or filter bubbles, in considering the range of descriptions we
identify two constituent characteristics that stand out. The first is a lack of information diversity due to restriction of information sources. In echo chambers, “individuals are exposed only to information from like-minded individuals” (Bakshy et al. 2015, p. 1130), that “confirms their previously held opinions” (Shore et al. 2018, p. 850), and “is devoid of other viewpoints” (Garrett 2009, p. 279). Filter bubbles are a “unique universe of information for each of us” (Pariser 2011, p. 9), “devoid of attitude-challenging content” (Bakshy et al. 2015, p. 1130), where “individuals only see posts that they agree with” (Lazer 2015, p. 1090). Reduced information diversity exaggerates confirmation bias - the individual and collective tendency to seek out information that supports preexisting beliefs (Nickerson 1998). It also facilitates ideological groupthink — a collective manifestation of closed- mindedness and an overestimation of the value of collective beliefs that are reinforced by pressure towards uniformity (Janis 1982)."

"Your recommendations don't just depend on your actions. What matters is what people "like you" do. Thus, it's easy to predict your age and political ideology based on the behaviour of people who follow you on Twitter, especially if you follow them in turn. We're sorted into neighbourhoods based on our likes and dislikes in order to uncover hidden relations and to foster new ones.

The driving logic here is homophily: the idea that people who are alike act alike, that birds of a feather naturally flock together, that similarity breeds connection. Homophily makes networks by creating clusters, so you're not just linked to others because of your IP address or geographic location. This means you're easier to find and it's easier to find others. This principle is allegedly as old as Plato and Aristotle, who declared that similarity drives friendship and love.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/virtual-segregation-narrows-our-real-life-relationships

There must be some good that comes from homophily besides the obvious downside. It’s certainly very comforting and fortifying to find like-minded folks out there everywhere community. And that can help bring change. But too much of it does also breed a kind of cluelessness or lack of understanding. People who only entertain opinions that are not challenging might find themselves wondering why things happen the way they do or worse may find it easier to fall into blaming and hating. In the physical word it’s like living in a ghetto or behind walls or fences.

https://radioopensource.org/real-news-ethan-zuckerman-solana-larsen/

effects of homophily

It’s my contention that living in the 21st century requires understanding what people think, feel and want in different parts of the world, given that both the challenges and opportunities of next several decades are global, not local ones.

https://ethanzuckerman.com/2008/04/25/homophily-serendipity-xenophilia/

But journalism has an explicit public service function, a social responsibility to inform citizens so they can make political decisions. Some of the blame for an isolated, ill-informed citizenry has to fall on the news media.)

Why is homophily a trap? Cass Sunstein argues that it can polarize us – in Infotopia, he cites a study he helped conduct that demonstrates that deliberation of political issues with like-minded people leads subjects to a more politically polarized stance. From this, and from a close reading of political polarization in the blogosphere, he argues that the Internet may make it easier for us to share information with likeminded individuals, and that in a political context, this could be a bad thing.

My argument, basically, is that it’s possible to miss huge trends, changes and opportunities by talking solely to people who agree with you.

Social media blogs, social bookmarking, social networks all of these can be tremendous ways for us to find and bond with like-minded people online. In fact, these tools have allowed us to find even MORE people like us than we tended to encounter in “meat space.” The problem is that we’ll tend to seek out ONLY like-minded people, looking for groups, blogs, etc. that reinforce our preconceived notions and our personal interests. We then start to live in an online world where we don’t see or hear other voices.

https://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog//2008/04/why-the-interne.html

Take, for example, two mothers who become friends after meeting at a day-care center. Beliefs, especially about politics, may never be part of their explicit conversation. But the day-care center exerts a very powerful role in selecting people with similar demographic backgrounds and shared experiences. The mothers are likely to be about the same age, to face common child-rearing challenges and to have similar views on how to balance parenting and work. The fact that they are at this day-care center means they can afford it, which suggests they are in roughly the same socioeconomic class.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500913.html

We are able to make sense of this world by perceiving things. From the day we where born, we are trying to make sense of the world.
We assume things, we categorize, most of the time uncounsiously. We get used to the world. We need this ‘logical thinking’, because otherwise it would be exhausting. However, Jostein Gaarder writes in the fictonal book ‘Sophie’s World’ how it’s a pity the world becomes a habit. This text emphasizes on the value of the faculty of wonder. How we get so used to everyday life, when there are so many important questions to ask. Nestling ourselves deeply in the rabbits fur, we get used to our surrounding, and make conclusions from our point of view. It doesn’t only lets us take this world for granted, but it creates biases as well.

We are situated in a bubble. Pariser called this the “filter bubble”: an algorithm-driven process that would encapsulate each internet user in their own personalized bubble. (Kaiser,Rauchfleisch) Factors that influence the topics, language, and location of the recommendations.
A text by Ethann Zuckerman adresses Homophily. “Homophily” is a term, a compact word that expresses the idea that “birds of a feather flock together” – that you’re likely to befriend, talk to, work with and share ideas with people who’ve got common ethnic, religious and economic background with you.’ Zuckerman, 2008) This results in your worldview being concised, causing you to make uncounscious and conscious biased decisions.
‘We make sense of the world, for the most part, through what we hear about it, not what we encounter of it. To the extent that our understanding of the wider world is a poor one, it’s worth asking questions about our media and if it is working correctly.’ (Zuckerman, 2008).

fictonal book "sophie’s world"

‘A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable they never risk crawling back up the fragile hairs again. Only philopsophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall of, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselvers with delicious food and drink. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ they yell, ‘we are floating in space!’ But none of the people down there care. What a bunch of troublemakers!’ they say. And they keep on chatting: Would you pass the butter, please? How much have our stocks risen today? What is the price of tomatoes? Have you heard that Princess Di is expecting again?’ (Gaarder, 1995)

exploring one of our groupmembers social media further:

Instagram is the one social media platform I currently use. I have 140 people that I follow at the moment and 109 that follow me. By looking at the number of people, I see that most of them are from the Willem de Kooning academy. In fact, 32 people that I follow are from this academy, excluding my closest friends there.

There are 13 people I consider as friends and with whom I have regular interactions. 35 People that I know but am not really good friends with or in contact with. The rest are art pages, actresses & actors and “influencers”.

Is it possible for me to see a kind of filter bubble already? I have noticed that only 10 people of my followers are not interested in art, all the others work in the art industry or make art in their free time.

activism; most of them deal with climate change, sustainability, speciesism, fast fashion, but also feminism:

feed consists
of many art posts:

satire; mostly concerning politics in austria and germany (against right-wing):

our "bubbles in real life 

marinda:

nicole:

After doing research on homophily and confirmation bias, I can see that this clearly applies to my social media as well (even in real life). Most of them share the same interests as me, such as sustainability, speciesism and feminism. The activists I follow, but also people I know, use their platform from time to time to draw attention to a particular issue or to a scandal. And I can see that I mostly agree with their point of view.

valentina:

elias (23)

have the same interests in design - graphic design education & works now in the creative field as film maker; 

we share, among other things, an interest in climate change, fast fashion, politics & speciesism;

hannah (26)

besides that we are related we have, among other things, the same view on politics & share what we like to do in our free time such as spending time outside; but also living a more simple life.

mirena (23)

bonded at first because we are both international students & don't speak dutch

have the same interests in design - graphic design education; 

youyou (20)

really got to know each other through a mutual friend;

have the same interests in design - graphic design education; 

ellen (23)

bonded at first because we are both international students & don't speak dutch;

share the same interests in what we like to do in our free time such as skiing; 

tess (22)

bonded at first because we are both international students & don't speak dutch;

have the same interests in design - graphic design education; 

melisalucia (20)

lived together for some short period of time; 

have the same interests in design - graphic design education; 

simon (27)

we share the same view regarding politics, the taste in music, but also what we like to do in our free time.

tina (22)

went to the same primary school, middle school, highschool & first year of university; 
& we lived in the same village; 

have the same interests in design - graphic design education & studies art history; 

katharina (23)

went to the same primary school & middle school; grew up in the same village; 

we share, among other things, an interest in speciesism, politics & equality; but also travelling;

hannes / my dad (59)

besides that we are related we share the same interest in art; works as an artist & art teacher; 

we have, among other things, the same view on politics and climate change;

maria / my mom (58)

besides that we are related we share the same interest in art; works as an artist & art teacher; 

we have, among other things, the same view on politics and climate change;