Take a Glimpse into another person's digital bubble
A collection of donated digital experiences.
Graphic by Hengyi Ren
What is Glimpse?
Glimpse is a collection of donated digital experiences that can be explored from a first person point of view.
Glimpse is a collection of digital perspectives from people from all walks of life. People can donate a portion of their digital experience that they have curated over the years for others to view.
What is a digital bubble?
A digital bubble is a metaphor for the limited view in which we experience the internet.
The information that is presented to us when we interact with online elements, such as search engines and social media, is based on the activities and interests we have demonstrated in the past (Pariser, pp. 61, 2011). For example, two people can search the same keywords in a search engine and get completely different results. In other words, our digital bubble decreases the diversity of information that we see (Bozdag and van den Hoven, pp. 249, 2015).
What is the value of donating one's digital experience?
Each person's digital bubble is an entirely new world for another.
The main problem with being stuck in your digital bubble is that there is low diversity of information you can consume. While there is value in seeing content tailored to your personal interests, diversity in the content consumed is a key factor in ensuring a well-informed public (Haim, Graefe, and Brosius, pp. 333, 2017). One digital bubble is not very diverse, but a collection of them is. One can counter the negative effects of being in their own digital bubble by entering and exploring other people’s.
Why did we make Glimpse?
1. You don't know what you don't know.
Someone you know may have introduced you to a new book, movie, music genre, etc. that you have never heard of. But if they hadn’t told you about it, how would you have known about it? How can we discover things that we have never heard of?
Glimpse can suggest a randomized digital bubble for you to explore, increasing the chance of encountering a new subject you have never heard of and diversifying the information you consume online.
User Story - Amy
See how Annie, a classical music student, discovered the Jamaican music scene through Glimpse.
2. Provide veteran guidance on starting new interests.
As people get deeper into their interests, they will go through the process of editing the sources they get information about it from. The first source they discover may not be one that they will continue to use throughout. They discover new sources as they keep exploring and pair down to the ones they like best.
Looking into a veteran in this subject matter’s approved list of sources that they have curated over time can be of great help to someone just starting out. Glimpse offers viewers to experience the internet through the veteran’s perspective, such as viewing their news feed on social media and results on search engines.
User Story - Debbie
See how Debbie developed her own personal style through expert guidance on Glimpse.
How does one donate their digital experience to Glimpse?
1. Choose to donate your bubble
2. Connect website you want to donate from to Glimpse
3. Glimpse will analyze your activity and preferences on the website
4. Glimpse will recognize topics that you are an expert in, and allow you to select which topics to donate
Glimpse will not capture any personal information from your connected websites.
5. Your digital bubble is now ready to be explored by others!
Graphics by Hengyi Ren