IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2018 - 12

intermediaries. Here, trust partners
are various information intermediaries
that are rated and trusted by their
users on an ongoing basis. We have
many trust partners around us.
For instance, websites such as TripAdvisor and Expedia are partners
for hotel information; credit rating agencies are partners for credit
information; auditors are partners
for reliable financial statements. In
a simple version of Orman's framework, any important information will
flow through such trust partners and
in turn, the users will rate the partners. Thus, individuals will eventually have trust partners in every walk
of their lives for reliable information.
Even though such social design may
have apparent merits, it is not without adverse consequences. One
simple reason is that trust partners
compete among themselves. Given
that information quality is difficult to
ascertain, trust partners may adopt
misinformation to remain competitive. Indeed, the financial crisis of
2008 shows us that such competition among credit rating agencies
facilitated large-scale commercialization of sub-prime mortgages [3].
Moreover, given information products have large economies of scale,
what will prevent the trust partners
from becoming monopolies?
Finally, Orman underemphasizes
the role of existing social relations
and institutions (e.g., families, friends,
group memberships, kinships, and
status) in addressing issues of information quality and trust. In his pioneering work on the role of religion
in capitalism, Max Weber shows that
sect memberships, a form of voluntary relation, became a stamp of
trust for borrowing and lending transactions in the U.S. financial markets
(see "Churches and Sects" in [4]).
Over the last five decades there has
been a multitude of evidence to prove

various aspects of this point. Thus,
a pertinent follow-up question to
Orman would be to find out whether
"information overload paradox" leads
to changes in the nature of these relations and institutions. For example,
"has information overload changed
the way individuals form and trust
family, friends, and groups?"
As discussed above, Orman lays
out a simple, elegant framework
to understand the paradox; however,
interested research communities may
find it useful to examine the ways in
which the mechanisms ("substitution," "obsolescence," and "competition") interact. We use an example
to illustrate this point. Assume an
individual has developed a trust
relationship with an online, interactive news community for reliable source for interpreting social
events. This apparently saves the
individual from using low quality
information instead of high quality
information, i.e., the "substitution"
problem. But the danger lies in the
potential that repeated interaction
among the community members
would give rise to a clan-like culture,
leading the whole community to
think and act alike. Such phenomenon has often been described as the
"echo-chamber effect" [5]. Moreover,
there is ample evidence that human
social lives (ideologies, views, living
conditions) correlate with similar
others, fortifying the "echo-chamber" effect [6]-[9]. Formed for a narrow issue or purpose, trust partners
or communities could thus develop
a tunnel vision among its members,
leading to loss of knowledge and
practices in various other areas of
life. As the result, trust communities,
those with echo-chamber effect, may
become a source of "obsolescence"
as well. Furthermore, echo chambers can develop an identity of their
own and become a source of fierce

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

"competition" and misinformation.
Based on the reasoning above, we
suggest a simultaneous consideration of Orman's three mechanisms
to understand the implications of
information overload paradox and
its full consequences.

Reviewer Information
Abdullah Shahid is a Ph.D. student
in the Department of Sociology at
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Email:
ais58@cornell.edu.
Ningzi Li is a Ph.D. student in the
Department of Sociology at Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY. Email: nl323@
cornell.edu.

References

[1] G. Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life. Blackwell, 1903; http://www
. b l a c k we l l p u b l i s h i n g . c o m / c o n t e n t /
B P L _ Images/Content_store/Sample_
chapter/0631225137/Bridge.pdf.
[2] D. Acemoglu and J.A. Robinson, Why
Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Crown, 2012.
[3] B. Becker and T. Milbourn, "How did
increased competition affect credit ratings?," Har vard Bus. School, Working
Pap., 2010; http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/
Publication%20Files/09-051_13e0275ca3a4-48bd-a86a-2324d5d70b57.pdf.
[4] M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the
"Spirit" of Capitalism. New York, NY: Penguin, [1905] 2002.
[5] N. DiFonzo, " The echo-chamber
effect," New York Times, Apr. 22, 2011;
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/21/barack-obama-and-thepsychology-of-the-birther-myth/the-echochamber-effect.
[6] B. Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Liked Minded America is Tearing
Us Apart. First Manner, 2009.
[7] T.C. Schelling, Micromotives and macrobehavior. Norton, 2006.
[8] F.B. Shi, Y. Shi, F. Dokshin, J. Evans,
and M. Macy, "Millions of online book copurchases reveal the politicization and
polarization of U.S. sciences, Nature
Human Behavior, Apr. 3 2017; https://
www.nature.com/articles/s41562-0170079.
[9] K. Hoanagar, "Blame the echo chamber
on Facebook. But blame yourself, too,"
Wired, Nov. 25, 2016; https://www.wired
.com/2016/11/facebook-echo-chamber.

∕

March 2018

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/0631225137/Bridge.pdf http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/bpl_images/content_store/sample_chapter/0631225137/bridge.pdf http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/bpl_images/content_store/sample_chapter/0631225137/bridge.pdf http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/bpl_images/content_store/sample_chapter/0631225137/bridge.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/09-051_13e0275c-a3a4-48bd-a86a-2324d5d70b57.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/09-051_13e0275c-a3a4-48bd-a86a-2324d5d70b57.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/09-051_13e0275c-a3a4-48bd-a86a-2324d5d70b57.pdf https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/21/barack-obama-and-the-psychology-of-the-birther-myth/the-echo-chamber-effect https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/21/barack-obama-and-the-psychology-of-the-birther-myth/the-echo-chamber-effect https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/21/barack-obama-and-the-psychology-of-the-birther-myth/the-echo-chamber-effect https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/21/barack-obama-and-the-psychology-of-the-birther-myth/the-echo-chamber-effect http://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-0170079 http://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-0170079 http://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-0170079 https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-echo-chamber https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-echo-chamber

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2018