@prologic@twtxt.net One reason I keep insisting on this point is that I don’t get the impression that the folks opining about echo chambers actually read the research I posted. I’m not disputing that people try to create echo chambers, that creating such a thing is valuable to some, nor that they might succeed at times and with some people. All I’m doing is following what the research I’ve read argues, and has accumulated evidence for (importantly), which is:

1. Echo chambers are not widespread. Only a minority of people are affected
   
2. The phrase “echo chamber” itself is an example of the very phenomenon you’re trying to critique by using that term. People who want to believe there are echo chambers are stuck reinforcing that term with one another because they are not considering counterfactuals
   

To quote:

Using a nationally representative survey of adult internet users in the United Kingdom (N = 2000), we find that those who are interested in politics and those with diverse media diets tend to avoid echo chambers.

2000-ish people is a good sample size. “Diverse media diet” is fairly broad; it mostly means consulting more than one or two sources. The paper defines what they mean by these terms (including echo chamber).

A deep dive into the academic literature tells us that the “echo chambers” narrative captures, at most, the experience of a minority of the public. Indeed, this claim itself has ironically been amplified and distorted in a kind of echo chamber effect.

That is, “echo chamber” is the result of people in echo chambers about echo chambers! It’s maddeningly circular and meta!

The cure to such things is simple: a diverse diet of information. I’m trying to help promote that diverse diet by providing information that contradicts the prevailing “wisdom” about “echo chambers”. It’s being rejected, or at least not taken seriously enough to read and incorporate. I think that’s a fair assessment on my part, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be frustrated about it.