How Technology is Limiting Serendipity and Discovery
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The document discusses the concept of serendipity, which is defined as accidentally stumbling upon something fortunate while looking for something else. It notes that losing serendipity is bad, as it can lead to missing out on life-changing opportunities. Several graphics are presented showing how searching only for what we like online and befriending similar people can make us less open to new experiences and discovering unexpected passions or relationships through chance encounters. The document advocates enabling serendipity by exploring a variety of topics and clusters of information.
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How Technology is Limiting Serendipity and Discovery
- 1. Losing Serendipity by Lenny Rachitsky
- 6. Good News Serendipity Today Future
- 7. Good News Serendipity Today Future
- 8. Good News Serendipity Today Future
- 9. Bad News Serendipity Today Future Life Changing Serendipity
- 10. Serendipity Today Future Life Changing Serendipity Source: http://bit.ly/9QRbuV
- 12. ...reality is that we are not Source: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/aircraft-pictures/2008/12/
- 13. We read about the same kinds of places... Source: http://globalmatterspost.blogspot.com/2009/12/ebook-and-iran-vs- michael.html
- 14. We make friends with the same kinds of people... Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/metroblossom/ 133933735/
- 15. Non-Mac Becoming more and more similar... Source: http://philtered.com/timages/i/lots-of-apples.jpg
- 16. “Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance” ‐ Sufi saying Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fiction.html
- 24. What you like
- 28. What you’ll miss New favorite song What you’ll find What you like
- 29. What you’ll miss New favorite song What you’ll find What you like Best dessert ever
- 30. What you’ll miss New favorite song What you’ll find What you like Best dessert ever Your new passion
- 31. What you’ll miss Your soul mate New favorite song What you’ll find What you like Best dessert ever Your new passion
- 33. Are we screwed?
- 38. Cluster A Best stuff Cluster B
Editor's Notes
- basic premise
- not the movie
- - what is serendipity?
- The good news is that overall opportunities for serendipity are increasing
- - thanks to things like the wikipedia rabbit hole - and twitter and foursquare
- the problem though is that the type of serendipity that changes your life, the big serendipitous events, are being lost
- - and like this guy that’s sad and scary
- - You would think that there are many more opportunities for major serendipity events now that we’re so connected and global, where we can travel anywhere and read news about everywhere
- - The reality is that we are still mostly living in our own clusters - if you look where people actually fly, it’s still focused on very few locations in the US and europe, excluding the rest of the world
- - Same thing with news - This is a map of the world distorted based on where people in the US read news about - For the US it’s obviously all about the US, and countries the US has invaded - This shows that we’re still living in our own bubbles
- - staying in our clusters, making friends with people pretty similar to us
- and becoming more and more similar, reinforcing those similarities, all the while thinking we’re think different
- - human beings have limited interest in trying new things that are outside their comfort zone, and we build filters to keep things out - As this quote by the Sufi’s puts it, knowledge that takes you NOT beyond yourself is far worse then ignorance - unfortunately technology is making that too easy by keeping us in our own bubbles, catering to what we tell it we like and want
- - I just read this book stumbling on happiness and the basic conclusion is that we’re really really bad at predicting what will actually make us happy, that we think we know what we want but really we don’t - and so without big serendipitous events, we may not discover the things that make us truly happy - here are a few examples of what I mean
- We tell recommendation engines what we like, which means we’re get more of the same kinds of things. - We teach Pandora what music we like, which means we won’t be exposed to music we never thought to check out. Most of the time it’s great and you find new music that you’ll like, but you’re missing out on totally new music that you may fall in love with - Amazon tells us what we’d like based on what we’ve already read, and what other like minded users like. We won’t be exposed to anything totally new. - Hunch.com is doing the same kind of thing on a larger scale.
- - We tell Google what kind of news we want to read
- We gather in places where like minded people post like minded stuff
- We use dating sites that match us with people based on things we think we want, like questions like this “How often do you tweet?”. - I’m guessing most of the married people here would never have met if they based their meeting on how well matched they matched up on specific traits, that serendipity had a factor
- We use Yelp to find the best restaurants around, killing that feeling of self discovery
- - even things like google directions reduce our chances for serendipity, getting us straight from point a to b - getting lost and making a wrong turn is usually the part of the trip you remember most
- - Here’s how I see it. - this circle represents the stuff you already like and are aware of
- - This represents the things that pandora and google news and amazon will expose you to
- - But you’re missing out on a huge amount of other stuff - This circle is so big I couldn’t even fit it on the screen - and even though access to it has gotten much easier, we rarely take advantage of it
- - But you’re missing out on a huge amount of other stuff - This circle is so big I couldn’t even fit it on the screen - and even though access to it has gotten much easier, we rarely take advantage of it
- - You miss out maybe a new favorite song
- or the best dessert you’ve never had
- or maybe a new life calling
- or that special someone that you’d never see on match.com
- things like Foursquare and even groupon give you new opportunities for serendipity
- I created a site that builds on foursquare that helps serendipity even more by telling you when the male to female ratio tips in your favor at your favorite venues and notifies you
- Something I would love to see other services adopt is a serendipity option
- when you check it
- shows you one thing that a different cluster of people find very interesting - there’s a good chance you’ll discover something really new and great
- Another idea I’ve seen is to follow a random person on Twitter that you normally wouldn’t be exposed to
- Maybe pick up a random magazine that you normally wouldn’t ever think about reading
- maybe go watch that movie you’d never normally watch. or maybe not. thank you.