Have you ever had the experience of pouring your heart out to a friend, to your journal or a psychologist, while they just silently nod to your every word until finally you just feel so much better without any input from the other side?
Have you ever sought advice from a friend and you knew exactly which friend to turn to? Not because you knew they will give good advice, but because you knew that they will give the advice that you already wanted to receive?
Does this sound familiar?
In both cases, I think we can argue we just needed reaffirmation of our own points of view. Either by simple nodding or by not raising anything against our arguments. So we just wanted to have our own voice amplified and confirmed. In a sense, we can call these situations echo chambers, right? We hear our own thoughts back.
Echo chambers are often mentioned in the context of social media. The algorithm on any platform will present us with topics, takes, opinions that align with what we already think on a specific issue. This is simply because those are the posts that we will interact with most likely, hence spending more time on the platform.
So through our online lenses we can see in the world around us what we already believe to be the case. These echo chambers strengthen our beliefs and encourage us that we are right.
Recently, I have come across quite a few essays that changed my mindset on work, art and what are we allowed to want from our lives. I mostly blame Amie McNee and her writing for this. Check her out here on Substack, or read her new book she just published. It is amazing.
Anyways, the exact changes and the ideas are perhaps for another essay. The point is that all of the content that I have consumed was around the same set of ideas, be it from different sources and authors. The posts themselves weren’t new, or necessarily recent, but were shown to me by an algorithm. I’m not sure how much the algorithm understands from the texts themselves, but it was good enough to identify these pieces as something that I’m interested in.
Some of the essays provided genuine new information, points of view on a certain topic. Others were just reiterating what I have just read in a previous article or they were simply reaffirming what I already feel, that what I want from my life is good and is not something that should be repressed. In a sense, these sources were simply saying what I wanted to hear.
Does this sound familiar?
In the examples I provided at the beginning, echo chambers can be argued to be beneficial. We just want a form of reassurance or maybe even permission that what we are going through and how we feel about it is valid.
With my own case I’ve shown above, I feel it was beneficial for me as well. Those ideas lead me to write more, publish these essays, immensely reduce my use of social media and restored my hope for my future as an artist. Which again, made me want to create stuff.
I believe we all need sometimes our own little echo chambers of encouragements, comfort and maybe sometimes these are needed to understand some ideas on a much deeper level. To make them our own, to fully internalize them.
This effect of an echo chamber, and now I realize I might be stretching the usual meaning of this expression a bit, is similar to learning. Going over and over on a topic, in order to truly understand it.
I will acknowledge the dark side of mindlessly chanting the same thing without any inclination to look outside, consider other points of views, trying to understand the other’s argument.
Our time’s polarization and tribalism is partially the result of people being locked in their own echo chambers. If we remain in our comfort zones, there would be now way to develop ourselves in any are of our life. Be it developing a skill or contemplating any issue in the hopes of finding a resolution for it. To find common ground with another tribe, another worldview we need to try to understand the other side, where are they coming from, what is important for them. For this, we need to look outside of our echo chambers. We need to willingly put in some effort to learn, gather information that we otherwise would not receive from our echos.
To add a bit of a philosophical spice to all of this:
Have you ever experienced that you are deeply occupied with a topic, an issue or a plan for days or even weeks? You keep this idea in your head firmly, might be it a little bit in the back of your head. Then all of a sudden all sorts of events happen that are somehow all connected to that idea. You find a new article online on that topic, a friend starts to talk about the same thing, without you prompting them, or any other event happens around you or in the world that is in any infinitesimal way connected to the original idea you had in mind. And you cannot shake the feeling that this must be happening for a reason. That all is connected.
Does this sound familiar?
What do you think, why is this happening? Is it the universe talking to you? Are you connected to the secret hive-mind and you are downloading the latest update?
Well, I believe the reason is our beautiful minds. They are to blame for all these shenanigans making us think that there is something in the great beyond.
Our minds are attuned to the things that we are currently engaged with. Not in a spiritual way. Simply by the nature of our brain.
Have you seen the the basketball passing experiment?
Here, watch the video and count how many times does the team pass the ball. Do you have a number? (If you don’t know this experiment, please stop reading watch the video then come back).
So, have you noticed the gorilla walking in the background the first time you watched it? No?
This is my point exactly. What we see in the world around us is immensely influenced by what goes on in our heads. So when we are occupied in our thoughts with some issue or topic, we will notice patterns, events, pieces of information related to that topic.
It is not the universe sending you signs. Not in a personified, international sense. The universe doesn’t give a shit. All of this is in our heads. The complexities of our experiences, the unexpected connections, feelings so far unknown to us are all the result of the workings of that squishy sponge in our skull. Which in my opinion, makes life even more beautiful, more awe inspiring than positing some all knowing, all capable entity above us all, be it a god or a conscious universe. That is just lame, a cop out of an explanation for what humans experience.
My point is, there are benefits to echo chambers or whatever we want to call this phenomenon. Sometimes, we really just need to some reaffirmation, some repetition on what we already know or believe to be the case. But we have to keep an open mind, always. The essays I mentioned before that I have came across recently, even if they were written on the same general topic, all of them added a bit of an extra layer to it. A different point of view, another one’s personal touch and experience with that topic. These additional bits widened my field of view.
Most of them advocated for something that deep down I already knew, I just had no idea. All of it prompted me to making a move. To start living my days, building my habits in a direction, I think, I have wanted to for a long time.Still, in the end, we have to make our own decisions, make up our own mind on a topic. We need to be aware of what we consume.
Well, I hope this was something that you wanted to hear.
Until next time, take care.
Mátyás