Expanding Your World View and Avoiding Echo-Chambers and WHAT KIND OF PARADISE by Janelle Brown
- Marisa Gelfand
- Nov 6
- 2 min read
Jane spent her childhood in near complete isolation. She and her father lived in a remote cabin in Montana, far from the conveniences and connections of urban life. Their lifestyle was intentionally off the grid, with limited interaction with the outside world. Occasionally, Jane and her father would travel into town. These rare visits allowed Jane to maintain contact with her one close friend, offering her brief glimpses of a broader social environment.
Her father was her teacher, her guide, and her gatekeeper. Through homeschooling, he passed down his own political, philosophical, and academic views, shaping her worldview to match his. As Jane entered her teenage years, she grew curious and secretly explored the outside world by sneaking access to the TV and internet when her father was away. These covert experiences gave Jane windows into another reality.
When she suddenly left the seclusion of her father’s world and moved, alone, to San Francisco, Jane was exposed to opinions, rules, and norms that completely clashed with her father’s teachings. She felt unmoored, questioning everything she had once known and trusted.
In truth, many people live in echo chambers not unlike Jane’s cabin. These can form in families, friend groups, news feeds, or online communities; any space where only familiar ideas are repeated and reinforced. While it’s comforting to hear our own beliefs echoed back, this closed loop can shrink our perspective, distort facts, and polarize thinking. Over time, it limits our ability to learn, grow, and connect with others.
Here are tools for expanding your worldview and avoiding echo-chambers.
Engage With People Who Think Differently: Seek conversations with people who see the world unlike you do. Approach dialogue with respect, honesty, and curiosity rather than a need to win.
Explore Multiple News Sources: Read and listen across the spectrum. Multiple sources help you build opinions grounded in understanding, not repetition.
Take Care of Yourself: Hot-button topics and conversations can be stressful. Use deep breathing, pauses in conversations, and gentle movement to de-escalate and reset.
