Mutation of a Digital Nation

The term ’echo chamber’ started showing up in online discourse as early as 1997, when John Katz wrote a WIRED article, Birth of a Digital Nation. Katz’s article sees the internet as the force that would free people from the limitations of traditional media programming. Talk shows, newspapers, and radios were no longer the only vehicles for news. The net, as Katz calls it, connected thousands of people, and completely transformed the way we’re fed information. But the internet not only allowed an unbridled flow of information in, it allowed for an unlimited flow out. Katz saw this virtual liberation as a way to dismantle top-down media gatekeeping and spark political awakening.

No dice Mr. Katz.

Between the dot-com boom, the chaos of Y2K, and the hype of The Matrix, it’s not surprising Katz was excited. The web may have felt revolutionary, and certainly redefined political factions, industries and lives. But this period was short lived. I was born in 2001, and I have never lived in a politically undivided America. Katz’s logic makes sense, his article is widely cited, and his evidence is sound. So how did we manage to take something so liberating and become even more informationally siloed?

Echo… Echo… Echo… (Chambers)

Echo chambers that existed before the internet were mostly products of geography. We couldn’t communicate far or fast enough to pop our informational bubbles. Geography was the first version, the algorithm is the sequel.

The source of online echo chambers is still up for debate. I found the theory of “homophily” to be the most compelling anthropologic answer. Homophily is the tendency for people to seek out others similar to them. We naturally prefer to be surrounded by people we share traits with. This translates even more poorly when applied to the internet, where interaction can be anonymous and traceless.

So are we fucked?

I think we may be fucked.

Katz’s Birth of a Digital Nation was written during a digital revolution, and I can’t help but feel we’re on the verge of another 28 years later. If you ask me, it seems humanity is speeding headlong into a complete breakdown of online community, credibility, and communication.

This garbled word vomit I call a blog post will soon join the other billions of shitposts that serve as the backdrop of the web. I’m sure this was more fun to write than it will be to read and maybe that’s the point of the internet. To cast our thoughts into the endless void of cyberspace, hoping to hear something back, even if it’s our own echo.