What is filter bubbles?

Filter bubbles is a concept in personal epistemology: What you read shapes what you think which shapes what you seek out to read.

Example: You read three articles about declining economic conditions. They confirm a concern you already held. Now you are primed — your next search query includes words like 'recession,' 'downturn,' 'market crash.' The search engine returns results matching those terms. You read them. Your concern deepens. Your next conversation references these articles, and the person you are talking to sends you two more. Within a week, your information environment has reorganized itself around a single narrative — not because the evidence is overwhelming, but because your consumption pattern generated a feedback loop that systematically amplified one signal and suppressed everything else.

This concept is part of Phase 24 (Feedback Loops) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for feedback loops.