The Influence and Solution of College Students' "Information Cocoon" Effect

: With the development of digital technology and the popularity of apps such as Weibo Dingding, office work does not need to be in a designated place, and entertainment can be carried out anytime and anywhere, resulting in a large range of fragmented information. Disorderly competition among some media on the Internet attracts traffic through various eye-catching headlines and covers, and personalized algorithm recommendation mechanism in APP has also won the favor of most people. So they choose to accept it according to their subjective will. College students need more attention. Due to the characteristics of flexible course time and low economic pressure, they are more likely to fall into the "sweet trap" of app algorithm. They spend a lot of time on "fragmented entertainment" and only focus on the information they want to pay attention to, resulting in the "information cocoon" effect and information loss anxiety.


Causes of Information Cocoon Room
The concept of information cocoon was first put forward by the French thinker Tocqueville, who found that the democratic society naturally facilitates the formation of individualism and will spread with the expansion of identity equality. In the opinion of another scholar Sunstein, under the appearance of more information and choice, the Internet information era also contains the destruction of democracy. Sunstein explained the phenomenon of "personal daily newspaper" in his book Network Republic, that is to say, in the Internet era, with the development of network technology and the surge of online information, We can choose the topics we pay attention to freely in the mass of information, and we can make newspapers and magazines according to our own preferences. Everyone has the possibility of tailor-made personal daily news, and this kind of information choice like personal daily news will lead to the formation of network cocoon and information cocoon.
Because each of us has limited energy, in the era of information overload, which means that when all kinds of information gushing out in a short time, our limited energy is only enough to support us to choose the topics we care about and are interested in. Therefore, when we tend to choose the topics we care about and are interested in in every selection, This means that we have set ourselves up for a long period of time, allowing us to live in a self-constructed cocoon of information, and over time, our personal lives will take on a formalized, programmatic shape. Long-term excessive directional selection, immersed in the satisfaction of personal daily news, lost the ability to understand different things and contact opportunities, and then compiled an impenetrable information cocoon for themselves. We may seem to enter a room full of our own hobbies and interests, but in fact we are often trapped in our own thinking patterns, so that we are unable to make thorough decisions; In a society, everyone has the chance to get the news he likes. However, if the whole society is the same, all groups in the society will make different decisions based on different interests, and even split. Due to the lack of comprehensive consideration in all aspects, such narrow-minded thinking will lead to all kinds of misunderstandings and prejudices. However, it is precisely because the information is available for free, so in front of countless news, we make the choice of information according to our own mind, so as to see the part of information we want to see. Therefore, The picture we see of society is not the real picture of society, but the picture we want to see according to our own minds.

The Harm of College Students
Trapped in "Information Cocoon"

Network group polarization
Due to the "information cocoon" effect, people tend to choose the content they are interested in when receiving information, which easily leads to the split of social groups. People with the same interests gather together, thus forming a group, and such groups tend to have a common characteristic: "homogeneity within the group and heterogeneity within the group". When people notice that a certain position will win approval, they will be more active to join in, so such a position will get stronger support and wider influence. However, people who live in the "information cocoon" for a long time will talk freely and freely when discussing the topics they are interested in, but in the face of the topics they are not interested in, At this time, new things cannot enter the group, and people in the group will start to reject other reasonable ideas because of their own opinions, and even evolve into extreme ideas.

Loss of social stickiness
In the process of social development, human beings began to live in groups, because living in groups can ensure people's life of more resources optimization and survival and development. In such a group life, people formed a "common alliance". In the alliance, through people's teaching of experience, knowledge, sharing of tools and other behaviors, mutual help and interdependence gradually emerged. However, under the effect of "information cocoon", people are divided into different groups due to their different concerns. The satisfaction of the information obtained and the approval of other members of the group produce different degrees of xenophobia, resulting in the inability to empathize with, indifference to and no assistance to other people or other groups in the face of difficulties. Focus only on your own gains and losses.

Build a systematic guidance mechanism of the university public network platform
Under the "information cocoon" effect, people gather together due to their preference for a certain type of information, while they often reject the information they are not interested in. The fundamental solution to this situation is to make everyone receive the information equally. Only when all kinds of information are spread evenly and widely among people, Only in this way can the audience receive more diversified and extensive news, form a more inclusive and diversified mentality, and establish a more comprehensive perspective to discuss the occurrence of events, so as to effectively avoid the rejection of different views of a certain group and the extreme pursuit of a certain point of view. This requires all colleges and universities to actively assume the responsibility of network guidance, regulate the management of network platforms, pay attention to the trend of public opinion on network platforms, timely stop speeches deviating from the mainstream values, timely ideological education and guidance for speakers, so as to effectively block some extreme speeches, and do not need to interfere too much in normal topics of discussion. However, in the process of discussion, we should always be vigilant and maintain the information security and civilization of college students in the network through certain ways.

Construct a healthy public network opinion platform for colleges and universities
The improvement of management mechanism can avoid the contradictions caused by group polarization, but increase the communication between groups and break the barriers between groups. Therefore, it is necessary for the words of different groups to be heard and accepted by other groups.
Colleges and universities can actively build a public opinion platform, encourage students to publish topics, have active discussions on the platform, publish different views on the same event, as well as various experiences in study and life, and encourage everyone to participate in the platform, which is a good way to break the barriers between groups, so that more kinds of information can be seen by everyone. More perspectives can be accepted and recognized by everyone, thus effectively breaking the network "information cocoon". We encourage everyone to participate in this process, not limited to "our own daily", but to edit a "everyone's daily" together. In the process of discussion, we can receive more diversified and comprehensive information and gain something from the communication. In the interaction process of the platform, the limitation of small groups can be broken, and different groups can integrate with each other to form a broader cognitive system. Fully mobilize students' enthusiasm to accept different information and knowledge, so as to form a more comprehensive and macro perspective, build a scientific knowledge structure, and shape a correct outlook on life and world.

Actively supervise the public network platforms of colleges and universities
With the rapid development of the digital age and the rise of various social media and network forums, the power of discourse of netizens on the Internet has been greatly improved. The same is true for the network forums in colleges and universities. Teachers and students in colleges and universities have unprecedented power of discourse and can express their own opinions on campus network platforms. However, due to the lack of legal and moral binding force in online forums, some inappropriate remarks and bad emotions are often published and spread freely, causing panic among students. On the one hand, the solution requires strengthening supervision of public online platforms in colleges and universities. However, due to the rapidity, two-way interaction and lag of problem discovery in online forums, On the one hand, it is necessary to improve the quality of teachers and students, enhance legal awareness and Internet ethics, establish a sense of ownership, consciously protect everyone's "spiritual home", and take due responsibility for their own speech. Only with the full participation of the whole school can the campus network environment be truly purified. It enables college students to be more macroscopic and rational when receiving network information, and to make their own judgment carefully after comprehensively mastering relevant information.