You are What you Read: How to Manage your Personal Echo Chamber
By Ugo Bardi [ member of the Club of Rome, faculty member of the University of Florence, and the author of "Extracted" (Chelsea Green 2014), "The Seneca Effect" (Springer 2017), and Before the Collapse (Springer 2019) ]
I believe that blogs are by far the best source of information for individuals like you and me.
Of course, you know that blogs are somewhat
out of fashion in a word where you exchange quick bits of information
and your attention span can't digest more than one or two paragraphs.
Blogs are supposed to be passé, and their long texts are static and
don't fit in the narrow screens of cell phones. Nobody has time for
blogs anymore.
But blogs are special for several reasons,
including the fact that in most cases they are still kept by
individuals. It means that beyond the screen there is a human being whom
you can come to know well enough to trust (or mistrust). Opening a blog
page is like meeting an old friend: you know his defects and his
virtues, you know what to expect from him. And your friend knows that:
he won't trick you without knowing that it would mean breaking the bond
of trust developed over years of friendship.
Blogs also have the advantage that they provide sizeable chunks of information. They require a certain degree of attention and of commitment on the part of both the writer and the reader. Just the same kind of commitment that you would deem appropriate when meeting an old friend. It means that a blog won't bombard you with tons of shallow information that comes and goes leaving no trace, the way Twitter does.
Then, within limits, blogs have the advantage of providing permanent information. The number of posts in a blog is limited and normally you can retrace old posts, something you can hardly do with Facebook. Digging into the old posts of a blog is like discussing with an old friend, when it may happen that he'll tell you a story of the old times, or of when he was a boy.
Of course, you know what the problem with blogs is: you have to actively look for them, unlike the standard social media. It means it takes a certain effort to keep track of the blogs you like. Again, it is like keeping alive a good friendship: it takes some effort.
But there is a way to turn blogs into something that automatically comes to you, a little like Facebook does. It is called "Feed Reader." It is a very simple app, but I am always surprised to note how few people use it. But with a feed reader, you can keep track of all the blogs you are interested in. You open your reader and there you are: in front of a list that you can customize at will and that, unlike on the typical social media (Facebook and the like) you completely control. You decide what you want to see and you won't miss a single post unless you want to.
I started using a feed reader years ago with "Google Reader," it was a very simple and nice app that worked wonderfully until Google decided to push it under the bullet train. I think it was not casual that they did that. They are hungry for control and they understood that blogs can't be controlled with the same ease as with other social media. And so, Google Reader is gone, but never mind: there are plenty more feed readers. You can find a list at this link. I use one called "The Old Reader" that looks very much like the old Google Reader.
So, what can you do with one of these readers? One bad idea would be to build yourself a nice and tight "information bubble" where you will never be bothered by people who don't think exactly the same as you do. It may be a risk but, in my case, I did what I could to avoid this trap and try to use the reader app to gather information from a wide variety of sources. Did it work? I am not sure but I'll let you decide by showing you my personal information bubble as it is today.
Blogs also have the advantage that they provide sizeable chunks of information. They require a certain degree of attention and of commitment on the part of both the writer and the reader. Just the same kind of commitment that you would deem appropriate when meeting an old friend. It means that a blog won't bombard you with tons of shallow information that comes and goes leaving no trace, the way Twitter does.
Then, within limits, blogs have the advantage of providing permanent information. The number of posts in a blog is limited and normally you can retrace old posts, something you can hardly do with Facebook. Digging into the old posts of a blog is like discussing with an old friend, when it may happen that he'll tell you a story of the old times, or of when he was a boy.
Of course, you know what the problem with blogs is: you have to actively look for them, unlike the standard social media. It means it takes a certain effort to keep track of the blogs you like. Again, it is like keeping alive a good friendship: it takes some effort.
But there is a way to turn blogs into something that automatically comes to you, a little like Facebook does. It is called "Feed Reader." It is a very simple app, but I am always surprised to note how few people use it. But with a feed reader, you can keep track of all the blogs you are interested in. You open your reader and there you are: in front of a list that you can customize at will and that, unlike on the typical social media (Facebook and the like) you completely control. You decide what you want to see and you won't miss a single post unless you want to.
I started using a feed reader years ago with "Google Reader," it was a very simple and nice app that worked wonderfully until Google decided to push it under the bullet train. I think it was not casual that they did that. They are hungry for control and they understood that blogs can't be controlled with the same ease as with other social media. And so, Google Reader is gone, but never mind: there are plenty more feed readers. You can find a list at this link. I use one called "The Old Reader" that looks very much like the old Google Reader.
So, what can you do with one of these readers? One bad idea would be to build yourself a nice and tight "information bubble" where you will never be bothered by people who don't think exactly the same as you do. It may be a risk but, in my case, I did what I could to avoid this trap and try to use the reader app to gather information from a wide variety of sources. Did it work? I am not sure but I'll let you decide by showing you my personal information bubble as it is today.
_______________
You can read Ugo's full article on his blog "Cassandra Legacy".
Bravo to Ugo for this ode to blogs.
My own personally preferred reader is called FEEDBRO. Its free and customizable to your screen preferences.
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