confirmation (that is, only really considering information that supports what you were already thinking)—become

As wonderful as the internet is, it has reinforced our worst tendencies. We accept as truth the first Google hit that confirms our beliefs—even if the hit appears here of the search results. We don’t seek multiple references or filter out low-quality information. We quickly jump from “This sounds right to me” to “This is true.” Confirming our theor

As Farhad Manjoo documented in his book True Enough, it isn’t just about opinions—like-minded groups reinforce each other’s lousy, half-true, or even patently wrong facts. This is called selective exposure: we seek out and pay close attention to facts that suit what we believe, ignoring the ones that don’t.