Before this project, I had no idea that filter bubbles existed. I didn’t know that technology had already advanced so much that they saved your history and altered your search results. At first, I thought that filter bubbles were actually good, because they filtered out the things that you didn’t care much about. Then I thought more on the subject, and realized that there are cons to filter bubbles. Kathleen made a good point on Padlet: “We might not be able to have access to some websites due to its filter based on regular search habits we make. Often times, we would search our assumptions and questions for a topic, making the results biased. The search engine would assume we’re on certain side, therefore, showing more information of that particular fraction.” This was building on the idea that everyone had, that we would miss important information because of the filter.

These are the screenshots. The first is mine, the second is my partners.

Although we searched the same keywords, I feel like the results were still not very different.

Nevertheless, I still think we should try preventing filter bubbles, because over time, the more we search, the more the results might change, so we should start now. I feel that there actually aren’t any ways to effectively eliminate filter bubbles. The best we can do is just learn to search properly and choose the best websites that we are given.