WEBVTT - Don't Stress the Future 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.840 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.760 podcast that looks at the future and says, I'll say 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:20.760 it again in the land of the Free, use your 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.200 freedom of choice. On Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Volt and 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.160 I'm Joe McCormack. Today we're gonna talk a little bit 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.960 more about stress and data overload and maybe choice overload, 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.839 and how information and stress levels are maybe in a 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.600 related and uh and kind of a sort of a 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.520 technological approach to fixing that. I mean, as it turns out, 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.800 we have this astoundingly amazing tool at our disposal. I'm 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:46.880 talking about the Internet. I mean, if you think about it, 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.000 it's like the largest machine that's ever been built. If 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.560 you think of it as as one cohesive machine, it's 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.320 not bigger than Unicron. Are you sure you don't mean Galvatron. 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.840 We re recorded this bit and I'm not letting Joe 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:03.400 go back anyway. Yes, so un chron would technically be bigger, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:09.520 but that's a fictional machine. I hate to burst your bubble. No, okay, 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.839 uh no, the Internet it's super cool. It is super cool. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.240 It gives us gives us access to more information than 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.120 we've ever had before. So your average person who can 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.920 connect to the Internet can get huge amounts of information. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.440 And that's right. It's just it's just unequivocally good, right, 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.720 and not unequivocally I wouldn't say say that, I'd say 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.440 that getting lots and lots of information can create some stress. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.600 I mean, for instance, all three of us here and 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.160 and well, heck, i'll say all four of us, NOL, 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.280 I'm including you in this too. You're welcome, NOL. So uh, 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.520 all four of us are used to using the Internet 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.560 to research, to find information, and I'm sure that we 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:55.880 have all encountered that experience of during our research getting 0:01:55.920 --> 0:02:00.640 results back that just seemed like a mountain of data, 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.760 and some of it seemed like it might be relevant 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.120 to what we're looking for. Some of it maybe not 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.720 as relevant, but it wasn't necessarily easy to tell upon 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:11.920 first glance. So that means it's a lot of work. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.720 And then you're just thinking, before I didn't have the 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.519 information I needed. Now not only am I not sure 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:20.040 if I have the information I need or not, but 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.160 I've got lots of stuff that I have to go 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.840 through to find out. Yeah, it's a sinking feeling you 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.520 get when you realize that there's potentially a lot that 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.880 you should know you don't know. This will come into 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:34.359 you don't know if you should know it or not. 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.239 This will come into it to light. When we talk 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.480 about the overwhelming choice issue, which is a great discussion, 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.720 I can't wait to have it. But that's definitely part 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:46.880 of it. And you you hit right on there, you 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.359 know it's it's the not knowing part that can be 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:57.160 really irritating, like just irritating, but can cause real anxiety. Yes, yes, exactly. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.840 And when you start thinking about how much data we 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:04.000 reduce every day, that we're not making this problem any easier. 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.520 We're making it more difficult every single day. Now, if 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.400 you've listened to our podcast where we talked about big data, 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.440 one of those two podcasts we talked about the sheer 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.960 amount of information that we generate every day. If you 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.480 haven't listened to it, go ahead and do that. We'll wait. Okay, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.880 welcome back if you If you have decided that you 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.880 really didn't want to go back and listen, here's some 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.080 quick sound bites of information about how much data we 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.320 produce every day. So Twitter you know, you can produce 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.120 a a message of up to characters in a single tweet. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.760 You wouldn't think that that much information would be generated 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.400 by Twitter. As it turns out, it's about twelve terabytes 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:49.240 of tweets. It's interesting. You ever tried to sort out 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:53.280 an argument or public debate on Twitter, and you all, 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.880 if you're like me, you always get the feeling that 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.640 there's something you're missing. It helps, It helps if you 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.600 find uh, I mean, the still can be an issue. 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.240 It helps if you use certain Twitter clients that that 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.760 string together right, so that if something is a reply 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.640 to someone else, then you get the full thread and 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.720 you can read through it. However, if someone has not 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.719 replied to someone, if they haven't replied to an actual 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:20.880 Twitter message but instead have written a message and then 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.000 just put the at sign of whomever in there, that 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.560 won't be included in that in that conversation necessarily, so 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.520 then you end up missing key parts. This is a 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:36.599 really interesting debate. I think I can't quite tell well, 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.480 you think that you understand that there are definitely parts 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.800 you're not getting in this. You can't really contribute. It 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.320 can also be sort of like listening to one half 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.360 of a telephone conversation where your brain starts to really 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.000 work and overdrive trying to figure out what the heck 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.719 the other half of that conversation could be. If it 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.440 weren't for my horse, I never would have made that 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.200 year in college. So in two thousand twelve, all of 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.000 Facebook was collecting more than five hundred terror bytes of 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.600 data per day. Of course, we have the the YouTube 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:11.120 measurement one hours of video footage uploaded every single minute. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:16.120 So the point being that we are generating lots of information. 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.520 There's already a lot of it all available on the Internet, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.359 and we're making more every single day, so it's just 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.200 making this problem of sorting through data even more challenging. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.279 According to IBM, the big numbers that we create two 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.880 point five quintillion bytes of data every day. That's a 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.440 lot of cat videos and that's yeah, and it's it's 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.320 so much of what we've of the data that is 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.160 floating around our world right now, has been created in 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:47.440 the past two years alone. So that means up until sayven, 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.640 we only had generated ten of all the information we 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.320 now have at our disposal. The other we managed to 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.920 do in the last two years. That's and how much 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:01.680 of that information is really useful. Well, okay, that's fair. 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.520 And see that's part of the problem, right, is that 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:06.200 when we're trying to access this information, we have to 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.520 try and sort through what is useful and what is 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.560 not useful. This is, by the way, different from what 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.080 is important versus what is not important, But that's a 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.000 relevant question also, it can be yes, it all depends 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.080 on the context of what you are looking for. Right. 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.800 If you're just looking for something uh, you know, frivolous 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.920 in the grand scheme of things, then important is not 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.440 really necessarily an issue. But but you still want it useful. 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.839 You wanted to be relevant to whatever it is you 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.720 are searching for. So if you wanted to search for 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.680 super cute cat video, you want a super cute cat video, 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.360 you know, you don't want something else that's not you know, 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.840 here's a psychological breakdown on why we like super cute 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.039 cat videos. That might be interesting, but it's not relevant 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.560 to what you were actually looking for. Fortunately for the 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.880 people who really love super cute cat videos. Uh well, 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.359 let's say for the people who are exclusively searching for 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.039 super cute cat videos because who doesn't love them? Yeah? 0:06:58.080 --> 0:06:59.840 I mean, first, see if you don't love them if 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.080 I love them. Uh, well, I mean you're listening to 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:03.919 you can listen to our show anyway. But we just 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.040 you know, we realize that, but we don't recognize your existence. 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.240 But but if that's all you're looking for, this this 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.000 is less of a problem for you. It's it's much 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.080 more of a problem when you're looking for information that 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.840 matters in one way or another. Well, yeah, and I 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.560 mean it's an irritating experience no matter what you are 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:24.960 searching for, right, It's just sometimes it can be irritating 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:30.480 and also uh, really critical. So for example, if you 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:34.240 are looking up information for let's say that you're in 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.520 a part of the world where you don't necessarily have 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.480 access to a really good medical facility, and you're needing 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.600 to do some research on a medical issue that's really important. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.880 I mean you may you may come to the conclusion 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:47.920 that you have got to find a way to go 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.520 to some other place in order to have something addressed. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.560 I mean, that's that's critically important. But if you do 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.040 a search and you get back a bunch of results 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.840 that are related to, but not critical to whatever it 0:07:59.920 --> 0:08:03.720 was as you were looking for, that's that's a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.560 if you've got an emergency going on and you get 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.480 results that are that are partially blog entries and partially 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.880 advertisements and and partially you know, maybe information from a 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:14.960 source that isn't a really good one. You know, it's 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.600 it's hard to talk people through. You know, we all 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:20.840 do this every day, probably, but but trying to explain 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.240 to someone that everything that pops up on Google's front 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.440 page isn't necessarily what you want to click on, it's 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.880 hard to explain. So has research showed that these effects, 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.360 that this plethora of information has any effect on us? 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.720 There has been some research on this, and in fact, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.160 this is where we need to create a distinction, because 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:45.280 there's been some research on the overload of choice, which 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.360 is where you are given a whole bunch of different 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.920 options and then you have to choose between all those 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.920 options to figure out which one or which few are 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.760 the best for whatever your goal happens to be. And 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.679 then there's just data overload. And the two are connected 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.120 and not necessarily you can't necessarily say one is more 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.240 important than the other. It's more of the combination of 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.520 the two that create that Maybe what are creating a 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.680 real problem as far as stressors are concerned. I say maybe, 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.960 because when you come to psychological research, it's tough. You've 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.000 got a lot of variables you have to account for, 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.160 and and it's still fairly early on in this kind 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.400 of research, so we don't have a lot of definitive 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.640 studies and it's really hard to isolate variables exactly. So 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:28.400 so let's talk a little bit about some of this 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.679 work that has been done. So there's a psychologist named 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.120 Barry Schwartz who wrote a book called The Paradox of Choice, 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.120 Why More is Less? And uh? And Dr Schwartz was 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.520 looking into he was he's a psychologist. He was looking into, um, 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:47.080 how do people react when they have a lot of choices? 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:51.240 And and do more choices mean more freedom and more 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.800 happiness or does it actually, somewhat paradoxically make us feel 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.679 less happy? What is it better to have a lot 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.280 of choice or is it better have just a few options? Now, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:07.280 in his thesis he laid out a set of steps 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.840 that consumers go through. This is really looking at a 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.880 customer who is, you know, shopping for something and is 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.480 coming up with a whole bunch of different examples of 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.319 whatever that thing happens to be. So, he said that 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.640 they go through several steps. The first step is they 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.000 determine what their goals are, so what is it that 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:29.720 they're trying to accomplish. Then prioritizing those goals so if 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:31.559 there are more than one. If there's more than one goal, 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:33.160 they have to figure out wharri which goals are the 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.120 most important, which are the ones that have to be 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:39.840 met first, then examining the options that are actually available, 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.360 so what things are out there that are made specifically 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.920 to address this kind of goal. Then to measure those 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.600 options against the goals to determine which of those options 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.520 are most likely to fulfill those goals. Then the next 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.880 step is to pick the best option out of all 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.000 of them to meet the goals. The final step is 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.920 modifying goals if necessary. So this would mean if there 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.360 are more goals that need to be met, deciding which 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.480 ones you might be able to let go of, or 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.000 maybe even modifying your goals after you've made your choice, 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.080 so that psychologically you feel better about the choice you 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.800 have made. Right, So it's like, well, I really wanted 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.960 something that was sweet and crunchy, but this is just crunchy. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.079 But hey, I really just wanted crunchy, So I'm taking 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.720 this that would be a very simplified example. Now, Schwartz 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.360 suggests that stress was created by having too many choices 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:38.440 and that contributed to unhappiness overall and decreased satisfaction. But 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.040 his studies have also received some criticism from other psychologists 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:47.200 who have suggested that perhaps this is too simple of 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.040 a view and have said that, you know, replicating these 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.120 these studies that Schwartz has done has been somewhat problematic. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.040 They haven't really shown replicable results, and there might not 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.280 be a direct clear connection between the number of choices 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.080 you have and your general level of happiness and sense 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.040 of freedom. Now that being said, there was a study conducted. 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.000 This is one that everyone tends to cite. It was 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:17.520 done back in by a professor of business named Shena Angar. 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:22.040 And what Sheina did was set up a display in 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.880 a grocery store that was a jam display. So you've 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.280 heard about this one, right, Joe YEA. So it was 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.080 two different displays. There was one that had six jams 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.400 and there was one that had twenty four jams. And 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.439 so twenty four jams, twenty four different jams, twenty four 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.800 different jams, six different types of jam, and twenty four 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.040 different types of jam. Thank you yeah, not just hey, 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:46.520 that's my jam. You. So every few hours they would 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.920 swap out what which display they were using, and they 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:55.560 discovered something interesting. With the larger display, they attracted more customers, 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.079 but fewer of those customers would actually make a purchase. 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.440 Out of of all the customers who would stop at 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.840 the larger one, only around three percent of them would 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.360 go on to buy one of those jams. They In 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.160 both cases, the the customers sampled an average of two 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:12.480 of the different types of jam, whether there were six 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.040 types there or twenty four. The people who saw twenty 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.960 four three percent of them bought jam. The people who 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.839 saw the six selections of them bought jam. So the 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:28.760 conclusion was that by offering fewer choices, you actually increase 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:33.040 the likelihood of selling a product. Now, extrapolating that to 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.920 mean things that you know, too much choice stresses you 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.200 out or or contributes to unhappiness is beyond the scope 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.160 of that survey, but that's what some of the future 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.600 studies have done. Now this being said that you know, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:50.640 there there are people like uh Benjamin Shibehne know I 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:55.120 butchered his name. He's a Swiss psychologist who said that 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.439 perhaps it's more the relationship between choice and the information 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.200 we have a out those choices. So it's not just 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.120 the fact that we have a lot of different options 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.080 to choose from. It's that we don't know enough about 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.120 each option to feel confident in our choice, so that 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.199 the more choices you have, the less likely you're going 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.680 to feel that you have enough information about all of 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.040 them that you have made the right decision. So that's 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.680 where you get that buyer's remorse, where you have, you know, 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.440 forty different examples of whatever it was you went shopping for, 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.520 and ultimately you you settled on one, but there's a 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.200 nagging suspicion in your head that you didn't do enough research. Yeah, 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.840 perhaps one of those other ones. In fact, the likelihood 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.120 is that one of those other ones is better for 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.320 you than whatever it was you bought, Like you know, 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.320 you just started going through Like statistically speaking, there's a 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:47.440 very good chance that I have something that's not the 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.720 best version of whatever it was I was going after, 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.040 and therefore that contributes to unhappiness. So it's not just 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.000 how many choices you have, but how much information you 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.360 have in general about both your goals and the options 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.040 that are available to you. So it's a more complex, 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.200 uh system than just how many choices are there. I 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.520 was gonna I was gonna mention Amazon. UM. You know 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:10.360 the part of part of what has made that site 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.960 so successful is that UM it allows you to It 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.760 allows users to leave reviews and other users to read 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.080 them and UM and you know that's that's an example 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.800 of having way more information about a product than you 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:22.760 generally would if you walked up to a store shelf. 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:24.440 The shelf isn't going to tell you anything about it, 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.440 you know about when other users have have enjoyed that jam. 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:32.000 But although we've talked about augmented reality UH applications that 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.800 could eventually do that where that's really cool, Yeah, where 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.000 you'd be able to look at products and actually see 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:41.480 in real time what people people you trust have said 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.000 about it. So that's kind of interesting. But so uh, 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.880 if you want to translate this to what we were 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.840 talking about before, I mean, if twenty four jams upsets 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.240 people and makes it harder for them to choose, it 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.520 sounds like a party to me. What about twenty four 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.720 million Google results when you're trying to find a piece 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:04.680 of information. I did a search just as an example, 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.240 just a random example, I guess, not truly random, but 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.640 as an example to see how many results I might 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.040 get from a search that I might typically do in 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.680 the course of my work. So I searched for dark 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.640 matter and I got two hundred and eight approximately two 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.480 eight million results on dark matter. That's a lot of information. 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.400 Now there are things I can do to narrow that 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:32.000 search down, where I can use search term parameters that 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.800 will tell Google this is specifically what I'm looking for 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.600 when it comes to dark matter, whether it's the most 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.240 recent research or it's the you know, any sort of 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.400 controversy that's related to dark matter, or any sort of 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.000 early proof of dark matter, anything like that I could 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.360 I could give Google more information and then could receive 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:56.880 from the exactly it would narrow down that net by 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.680 by by clicking on a tab for for for news items, 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.640 if you're looking for or scholar or scholarly work, if 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:05.600 I want to look at papers. But when you do 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.040 something like that, it's interesting to point out that a 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.480 lot of the heavy lifting being done there is being 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.959 done by you and by Google, and not by the 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.119 pages themselves. Well, yeah, because what Google is doing is 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:22.280 it's trying to find the best results for whatever search 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.800 query you have typed in. So you have to be 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.119 somewhat savvy to know how to do this. It helps. Yeah, 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.280 I mean, Google definitely has been getting better at at 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.000 tweaking its algorithm to weed out any any sort of 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.720 results they're trying to game the system. In the early days, 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.440 do you guys remember web search in the early days. 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.080 So in the early days, the way search engines would 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.560 work is they would build dogpile. They would they would 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:47.679 rely on things like information that would be in the 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.119 header and footer of a website, so or web page. 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.159 So let's say you create a web page and your 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.919 web page is really all about I don't know, maybe 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.560 it's it's all about hamsters. You've written a web page 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.320 about hamps. But you really you also happen to have 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.639 in those early web days, you know one of those 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:06.640 you have, no, you have one of those visitor counters. 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:09.480 You remember those the counters that would click up every 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.480 time someone click on It actually became kind of a 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.880 status symbol among certain people who had web pages, and 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:20.440 you really really cool people. Yeah, Okay, let's not make judgments. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.680 I was one of those really cool people. Um so, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.520 so you have this page about hamsters, and you're genuinely 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:30.040 interested in hamsters. You you've raised hamsters, you love hamsters. 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.000 You want to share this passion of hamsters with the world. 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:37.080 But you know you're getting maybe three visitors every month, 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.080 and you think, wow, I was really kind of hoping 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.480 that I'd be able to share the love of hamsters 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.560 with a wider audience. So you think, how can I 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:45.840 get more people to come to my page. One if 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.040 I just put a whole bunch of random terms in 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.680 the header and foot her of my web page, things 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.359 that I know people are searching for, and then that way, 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:57.960 my page is gonna pop right up at the top 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.359 of search results for anyone who searches for that stuff. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.359 And even though they're going to arrive at my page 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.160 and realize that I don't have a website that's all 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.679 about making a cake, it's all about hamsters, maybe they 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.920 will discover the joy of hamsters. And if they don't, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.800 at least my counter will start popping up. So people 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.440 were gaming the system, and web search engines, including Google, 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.000 spent a lot of time tweaking their search algorithms to 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.680 try and negate anyone who was trying to to learn 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.919 the way that the search engine was finding information and 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.280 returning it as a search result, so that only in 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.000 theory the relevant pages would remain and that the most 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.480 relevant pages would be pushed to the top. So that 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.119 I mean, because you know, I I have on occasion 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.360 gone maybe ten pages back into Google Search. But that's 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.160 about my and that's not that's not even I mean average, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.600 it's nowhere near them. In fact, I read one result 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:58.160 that said that on average, around thirty six percent of 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.440 all Google users choose the top result, and then from 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.680 two through five equals another around thirty four. There was 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:08.840 a study done at Cornell in two thousand seven that 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:13.600 UM used eye tracking to UM. It gave students a 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.840 Google Search result page of UM of abstracts from research 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.479 papers and UM and with this eye tracking software, they 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:28.280 found out that the students trusted Google's Google's ranking system 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.400 more than they did reading the abstracts to see what 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:36.280 was more important to them. Well, and I mean, you know, again, 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.879 we get to this idea of you have all these options, 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.600 and if you're searching for something, chances are the reason 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:44.320 you're searching for it is because you want to know 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.720 more about it, which means you already do not know 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.399 which options are going to be the best for you. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.920 So you know, that might just be your brain saying, look, 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.840 let's not let's not complicate this, let's not do too 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.240 much work. Let's just pick that first one. It's got 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.000 to be the best. But so, what we want to 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.640 talk about here is the fact that Google is doing 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:08.240 the hard work. Their algorithm has to look at these 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.360 pages and figure out what makes them important or useful 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:14.760 or relevant to you, and they're using them two hundred 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:19.840 factors or more dators and and so what if the 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.080 pages actually did some of the work here, What if 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.359 it went beyond the pages doing the work and you 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.280 didn't have to worry about pages at all. Because that's 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:31.679 the other issue, is that let's say that I do 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.439 a search and I get a really good scientific paper 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.320 on something that I'm researching, And it may be that 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.120 it's a perfectly good scientific paper and it's still read 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.320 the paper. I have to read the whole paper to 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:47.160 find out if in fact it addresses the specific question 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.439 I had, and if it doesn't, then I have to 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:51.800