Our information is received through suggestions, recent searches, favorites, recommendations, and our followers.  Any update about anything rushes from the internet, flows through personal filters and eventually trickles into a notification onto our phones. We know the internet is a vast, intertwining ball of media that never stops tangling, so companies  develop algorithms to narrow that large ball down to a single thread. While this is great for getting the information we want, is does not give us what we should be viewing. There are some apps and websites where it is greatly appreciated not to scroll through the things we do not want to see, but certain news should not be biased or filtered just for our own convenience.

There are some times when seeing the “most viewed” and “grossed” searches are useful. Like when writing a research paper or trying to answer a question, finding the most reliable source should show up at the top of the page. Even when beginning to type a phrase into Google it starts showing up popular or recent searches; like typing, “how many…” begins to imply you are looking for “...ounces in a pound, days in a year, days until Christmas.”  This does make searching faster but other sites not on the first page are lost and hidden when they might actually be useful to the searcher.

Everyone has their own likes and trying to find an article or video is a lot easier by “liking” something and then having automatic suggestions provided. Netflix capitalizes on this algorithm: where any show or movie you watch then turns into its own, “because you watched...” row with recommendations just like it. But Netflix also wants its whole inventory to be available, which is why there are “trending” and other generic sections always available. Sites like Netflix appeal to people's individual interest but also lets them venture out and view something outside of what they would usually search.

While there are benefits to algorithms, certain types of media should not be fit to our likings, one is the news.  Controversial topics and world events should come to every person the same way. Stations that report on the same topic will have complete different angles they present it in; for example: CNN is considered to be liberal and democratic, while FOX is characterized as Republican. Many argue that the news is all biased and there is no way to find trustworthy articles, that is true and it developed from the sense that everything needs to be individualized.

Individualization is not so bad depending on the app or website, but once the search has any level of controversy, the personal filter should be replaced with the nonbiased one. It is agreed that our lives are filtered; being aware of this may help us understand that not everything we see on the internet is the right or even whole story. However this issue may never be resolved because people will search until they find what agrees with their opinion, not necessarily the least biased post. We would not want an algorithm that controls our life, then why should we not deserve for companies to create algorithms appropriate for the media we watch?