Below is an element-by-element overview of the entire "Introduction to Algorithms" lesson. To the left of longer elements, you will find short summaries of those elements. In each assessment element, a yellow highlight indicates a correct answer. Whenever relevant, we also include teacher tips💡and definitions of important words from NLP's word wall 💬*.*
Introduction to Algorithms
Thanks to digital technology, we're creating a ton of online information everyday.
Technology can help us sift through all this information using "personalization," which means tracking your online behavior in order to deliver content specifically curated for you.
Personalization algorithms create a digital fingerprint unique to you.
"Hi, I’m Nicco Mele. I invest in tech companies, teach college courses on emerging tech trends and I’ve written a book about how the Internet is changing our world. Today, I’m talking to you from the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication. Students come here to learn how to be journalists.
As you learned in one of your first lessons here on the Checkology platform, there is a lot of information online. A ton of it, really. In one day we’re creating as much data as human beings took thousands of years to create, thanks to devices like this [holds up his smartphone]. Digital technology is radically reshaping the volume, the speed and the pace of information that we’re creating. Think of how many photos you take with your smartphone every day. Twenty years ago – just 20 years ago – if you wanted to take photos, you had to go out buy film, put the film in your camera, take pictures – click, click, click, click – wait until you had filled the roll of film with photos, and then in order to actually see the photos you had taken, you had to take the film to a developer – to a lab – drop the film off and wait a few days, go back, pick it up. Then if you wanted to share the photo, you had to take an actual physical photo and give it to your friends and make copies of it! Things have changed dramatically. It’s no wonder that we’re creating so much information. Our technology has made it much, much easier to create almost anything. But there’s a problem here.
With so much information being created, it’s really hard to find stuff. Luckily, technology also gives us a solution. Just as technology has made it easier to create a ton of stuff, it’s also created ways for us to sift through all of this information and find what you’re looking for. But that solution comes with a hidden cost. By tracking your behavior online, sites like Google, Facebook, Netflix and YouTube can learn about you and try and bring stuff specifically for you. That kind of guesswork is called 'personalization'. Personalization algorithms are complicated math equations that use data collected about your online activity to shape your experience of the information you’re exposed to on the Internet. These algorithms look at your gender, age, location, online activity, such as what you tend to click on, how long you stay on the Web pages you visit and the kinds of things you share on social networks. These search engine algorithms also analyze your online shopping habits, the emails you write and the friends you connect with online. In the process, they create a digital fingerprint unique to you."
<aside> 💬 Word wall: Algorithm is a set of rules by which processes are automated by a computer program. Algorithms determine the information that appears at the top of search results and social media feeds, as well as many of the advertisements that you see.
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Describe a recent online experience where you noticed personalization. If this is the first time you’ve heard of personalization, write about what you think algorithms might have already learned about you through your online activity.
While personalization can be essential for finding what we are looking for, it can also be a little dangerous because it can keep you from finding new things.
Personalization algorithms can cause you to live in a filter bubble, which makes it hard to get a varied information diet that includes what you want to know as well as what you need to know about the world.
In the example that follows, you will be trying to get the figure out when a Jaguar's football game starts tonight.
"Personalization is essential. There is so much information on the internet that if you turned off personalization, you probably wouldn't be able to find anything you are looking for online. But personalization is also a little dangerous. Why? Well, it can keep you from finding new things. If personalization algorithms think you love candy, they will make it easy for you to find things related to candy, but potentially very hard for you to find things about healthy alternatives to candy. If Facebook notices that you only click on links from friends who are Democrats, then it will push updates from your friends who are Democrats to the top of your feed, making it less likely that you see posts from your other friends who may be Republicans or Independents.
Personalization algorithms can cause you to live in what is often called a filter bubble. This is a self-contained and self-reinforcing online world where most of what you find online is customized for you based on what the algorithms think you are looking for. What’s your favorite food? Mine’s ice cream. Now, imagine if your parents only served you ice cream. That wouldn’t be healthy! It’s important to eat a varied diet, with fruit, vegetables, grains and all that other good stuff — mostly good stuff, in fact — to stay healthy. Information is the same way. You need a varied information diet that includes what you want to know as well as what you need to know about the world. The stuff you want to read, see and watch, might not be enough to keep your brain – and your grades – in good shape. News about your world and your community is an essential part of a healthy information diet. It’s also healthy to hear or see other points of view that are different from your own to give you more perspective on an issue or the world around you. Our filter bubbles make this more difficult to do, often without us even realizing this is so. Imagine you are a Jaguars football fan. You want to find out what time the game starts tonight. Easy. Just go online and search for Jaguars, right? Let’s see what results we would get with and without personalization."
<aside> 💬 Word wall: Filter bubble is a self-contained online world where what you encounter is shaped, customized and personalized for you based on what algorithms think you want to find.
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