Echolalia

We designed Echolalia to value a diversity of perspectives. We sought to highlight anybody's ability to influence their community towards greater open-mindedness, critical thinking and decreased polarisation. The game’s ‘touching’ interactions were inspired by research that people place significant trust in information they get from friends and family (more than in the government, media or social media).

This matters in a world where 53% of people do not regularly listen to people or organisations with whom they often disagree, and 59% are more likely to believe search engines than human editors. (Source:  slide 33.)

This research review notes that “the more carefully and thoughtfully people engage in political judgement, the more influential their biases tend to be”, but also that “individuals can sometimes correct for biases once made aware of them”.

What you can do to help keep your community out of echo chambers and filter bubbles:

• Be aware of your own cognitive biases - here’s a nice introduction

• Read critically from a diverse range of perspectives (consider the source of your information)

• Keep interacting with people with different views than your own

• Practice empathy

• Teach tolerance

Echo chamber propositions

The echo chamber propositions are:

• Extraterrestrials exist. (52% yes/48% no, based on 2015 YouGov poll)

• The earth is flat. (0% yes/100% no, based on 2017 UK Meetup member figures)

• A vegetarian diet is better. (3% yes/96% no, based on 2016 Vegan Society research)

• Nuclear weapons should continue to be developed. (51% yes/20% no, based on 2016 poll)

• Humans have evolved from non-human life forms. (93% yes/7% no, based on a 2014 poll)

• The UK should leave the EU. (52% yes/48% no, based on 2016 referendum results)

With more development time, we planned to weight the gravity of the echo chambers by number of people who agree.