Safetogototown

  I began to update my Goodreads account.  If you get your reading material from Amazon and read digital copies you get the opportunity to update Goodreads immediately after finishing a book.  I do get some books from Amazon.  However, I use the library for the majority of my reading material.  So to update Goodreads I have to add the books manually.  Doing it manually gives you a bit of time to "look around" the app.  What I am actually saying is that I tend to fumble my way around the app to find what I am looking for.  While trying to update my reading list I also realized that I had "friends" as well.  Not sure how I got these I am sure there had to be some type of request/approval process.  As I scanned my home page I came across a book that a friend had rated, so I decided to give it a try. I did not read any reviews and my friend had only "rated" the book.  So basically I decided to read it based entirely on the title of the ...

  My last post took a general look at echo chambers and how they can affect the information we use to make decisions.  This post is about echo chambers and how they affect the way we process and disseminate the information we encounter.  Echo chambers narrow the scope of information we receive and can then alter our decisions.  The obvious tactic to address this narrowing is to seek out information sources outside of our echo chambers.  As I wrote last week this is easier said than done.  This is made more difficult due to the biases ingrained in us by our echo chambers.  A particular concern is being primed to information you would encounter from these alternate sources.  By being primed to expect this information it is then easily discounted by us.  This priming is a technique used by sales people to prime potential clients to discount the information presented by a rival sales person.  In the realm of online information and more publi...

 It has been a while since it have posted.  I have been enjoying the holidays with family and generally taking a break from the focused thinking that is required to create these posts.  Here is wishing everyone a safe and prosperous New Year.  Taking a break from the focus does not mean that I have had blinders on for the last couple weeks.  There has been a number of events that have caught my attention the past couple weeks and now I feel compelled to comment on them.  These events have got me thinking about the concept of an "echo chamber" and how they affect our lives. From this wikipedia  site echo chamber is an environment or ecosystem in which participants encounter beliefs that amplify or reinforce their preexisting beliefs by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal A possible synonym for echo chamber could be "group think".  Again to emphasize; the purpose of this blog is to focus on making decision...