Of course, one can “escape” these so-called filter bubbles, but how many people really care enough to go down the rabbit hole and make this escape? And, what if you were actually right in the first place?

As an example, you could decide today that either a vegan or carnivore diet is the way humans *should* eat. As you head into your filter bubble, you are likely to find very similar anecdotes on both sides, similar claims about the downsides of the opposing diet, and similar claims about how information is being withheld OR other people are morally deficient. Regardless of which side you are on, you genuinely think that you are “woke”, and that everyone else is brainwashed and/or ignorant, unable to see the light.

Likewise, you could seek rehab information, and find one camp who suggest “fascial” explanations for everything, and another who view all problems as the result of one specific muscle, or group of muscles, that are inherently “bad” (e.g. hip flexors, upper trapezius). Another group might scrape your muscles with what can only be described as a butter knife, and another might tell you all your problems are the result of the shape of your foot, and so it’s time to ditch the shoes.

Beyond the nuances of diet and rehab, the more problematic cases of this phenomenon in the bigger picture relate to movements such as the anti-vaccine movement, and other such conspiracist movements of people who distrust medicine. At that point, you are dealing with a potentially life-threatening phenomenon that is reinforced by our social engines. This has clearly been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Difficult problem. Clearly, it makes a lot of marketing sense to provide people with information, content, products, and services that they are most likely to want. But, the downside is the intellectual isolation.

On a personal level, one solution is to simply seek to disprove your own understanding of the world. Assume that you are dumb (we all are), and deliberately seek information that contradicts that which you hold dear to you. The ideal would be to use scientific principles and critical thinking to overcome this intellectual isolation, and to transcend the inherent cognitive biases that limit our ability to change our minds.

Most of us are wrong about lots of things that we believe. That is okay. It is the willingness to accept this that is important. If you can acknowledge your own ignorance, then you can work through the steps of scientific thinking to begin moving closer to the truth.

Here are some examples of questions to ask yourself:

• How did I come to believe what I do about X at this time?
• What evidence do I have to support this belief?
• Is there evidence to refute this belief?
• How do my beliefs align with those who spend all of their time studying this topic?
• If I have different opinions to experts, what could explain that? Is it likely that I may not have thought about this enough?
• What do I want to be true? Is this affecting me assessment of the evidence?

Think like a scientist trying to seek truth, rather than a consumer trying to choose what they "want".