Aaron Durlauf Essay Second Draft

The following is the beginning of my rewrite of my essay:

The information age has given rise to new technologies with vast potential to change the social and political climate of the world. As with any new innovation with the capacity for social upheaval, the creation of the internet and social networking, with their vast potential for organizing people and proliferating information, have sparked a debate about whether these technologies will be used positively or negatively. Some people warn that the internet may have subtle negative social and political implications for the world, while others cite the chain of protests in the Middle East in 2011, commonly known as the Arab Spring, and free information mapping websites, like Ushahidi as examples of how the internet can be used to spread democracy and human rights across the world. Through examining these different viewpoints, it becomes clear that the internet as a technology still in its infancy will develop a culture of responsible use and become a key tool in the spread of humanitarianism in the 21^st Century.

One important claim that has been made about the internet is that automatic customization of browsing leads to the creation of “information bubbles” which have damaging effects on the political discourse in the United States. One major proponent of this idea is Cass Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard College, who in his book, “Republic.com 2.0” contends that information filtering, which has become commonplace on most major search engines, is causing people to lose the virtues of civility, self-criticism, and open-mindedness. In a telephone interview reported in Salon.com Sunstein states that he was first struck by “the extent to which… the Internet enthusiasts really can’t even see a problem and can’t see the individual and social benefits of being exposed to stuff [they] didn’t choose” (Salon). Sunstein fears that the reinforcement of beliefs among people with similar views can produce increasingly extreme opinions. He supports this by noting evidence that on juries the “empirical finding [is] that like-minded jurors, when they talk to one another, tend to get more extreme” (Salon). This finding is echoed in the study of judicial decisions. When a judicial panel is composed of all liberal or all conservative judges, each individual tends to take more extreme positions than if the panel was mixed. This same trend can be shown in studies of discussion groups of politically like-minded citizens. Sunstein is not in favor of government regulation to solve this problem, stating that it requires “a cultural solution, not a legal solution” (Salon).