Question

3. During Russ Robert’s Deeds Symposium lecture, one of his “suggestions” to save yourself from the evils of social media/the internet was to diversify your news feed. That way you get some things from your point of view and some things from other points of view. This has some merits but as a fellow economist, I was a little surprised by this suggestion. Give me at least one economic argument for why his suggestion maybe isn’t so practical.?

Answer 1

3.
There is an economic argument of rational choice with individuals as they are driven by self-interest to take decisions, even if there is a diversity of information from the different sources. It means that there is a case of homo economicus that will cause the person to make choices that can fulfil his needs from the given alternatives. The presence of different information may not be very relevant as the person will only rely upon the information that serves the best interest of the person. It makes the idea of diversification of news feeds to irrelevant and impractical in nature.

Besides the diverse information from the different sources, can nullify each other, and a point of inaction is created. It makes to person to be in a position of indecision. With this point of view, the idea of diverse news feed is impractical.