Most Readers Don't Like Customized News

An anonymous reader writes "Despite the push by organizations such as Google and Yahoo!, a recent study found not everyone is a fan of web-based customization for news. The researchers defined customization as when the user gets to choose specific topics to read on a daily basis. Instead, some prefer personalization. This is when the system chooses content based on a reader's past choices. 'The obvious assumption is people would like more control over what they read,' Sundar said. 'We found when it came to evaluating new stories and quality of content, customization was the preferred method for power users. If you were not a power user, you wanted the system to tailor the news for you.'"

Comments

I don't want any customization

[timeOday]

It's selection bias. I intentionally visit salon.com and foxnews.com back-to-back to make sure I've covered both extremes.

Re:I disliked it when Google changed up

[arth1]

With customization I am never sure what I miss.

This is exactly why I don't want customization nor personalization.
Just because I'm interested in Tech and World news doesn't mean that I want news there to push aside a piece of news I'd be interested in on a topic I don't normally read.

Polarization

[theshowmecanuck]

I think having the system automatically personalize your news based on prior viewing history is bad for society. Right now in both Canada and the U.S.A. there is increasingly extreme polarization between conservatives and liberal (R versus D in the 'States). Granted people view what is of interest to them but when they are served ONLY news pages based on the articles they normally view, they never get the chance to see a different view point. Sure they can search for it if they want, but out of sight generally means out of mind. This can only lead to increasing polarization.

I believe one of the insidious dangers of the web is that it allows people to not only associate with those of like ideas, but to focus those ideas/ideals. science fiction author Gordon R. Dickson explored this idea in his Dorsai books. His idea was that if man were to be able to migrate to different star systems, those with like minds would choose to locate together. In his books, there ended up being planets of mostly agnostic scientists, mostly philosophers, religious fanatics, etc. And all with strong feelings towards their own doctrines. As they isolate themselves, the stronger their ideologies become. I see the internet facilitating this on our one and only planet and within countries, and often pan-nationally. People with like interests form groups on the internet, associate with proportionally more people in those groups on the internet, and become very entrenched in those ideas (i.e. closely interact proportionally more with internet friends than than they would with real people they meet in the 'real world') . Before the internet we had no choice but to interact only with real people who generally had a wider range of ideas and ideals.

While the internet is generally a good thing, I think the biggest danger of it is the polarization of society. Helping people to only see one view point is only contributing to this negative aspect. I wonder if it would help to instead of only choosing similar news viewpoints to what people normally look at, to make sure the system automatically presents at least a few news stories reflecting something different. i.e. Provide choices of what people generally view, but always show a few alternatives so that perhaps they might choose them occasionally and the system doesn't spiral the viewer into say radical right or radical left wing only ideologies in the news that is presented to them.

Re:I disliked it when Google changed up

[Kjella]

Well, there's always more news than there's time. Usually most people do it by reading some general sources and some specialized sources in the topics that interest them, what these customs news are trying to offer is to be your one-stop shop for all your needs. Reading a specialist source like "news for nerds" instead of reading more general news that might have interested you is also a form of "pushing them aside".

What I find annoying is that the filters tend to be too absolute. Its fine that I have preferences, but even if I'm not huge on sports I might like to catch some headlines. I'm not into celebs but it might be nice to not have the deer-in-headlights look saying "Paris who?". Even though I don't need to hear of every bowel movement on the stock market I like to know where the economy is going. For me to really use it, there's have to be a less/more slider with articles getting ranked by importance. I imagine that is why the "guessing" algorithm is better, I bet it's not so absolute as most crude checkbox selections I've seen.