Analysis of the Impact of the Social Media Filter Bubble on University Students. Case Study: Ecuador

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_7How to use a DOI?

Keywords

filter bubble; social media; critical thinking; social network

Abstract

This research analyzes whether young university students, the subjects of our study, are aware of content segmentation on social media, based on filter bubbles or “cookies,” which they approve of. This study uses a triangular methodology: netnography; non-participant observation; a survey of 350 university students between the ages of 18 and 25; and two focus groups with these same participants. The results demonstrate that young people do not analyze their media context with critical thinking and are unaware of how bias occurs in social media content and how these situations affect their opinions on important issues. The study subjects are unaware that they do not modify this phenomenon and how much information they cannot see because it is not permitted and cannot be modified by users. In the surveys, a small group reported reviewing different opinions on a topic before deciding, but this group is minimal. Therefore, young people lack critical thinking about their media ecology and the conditions under which they navigate the internet and social media. This situation is worrying because most consultants are opinion leaders in their family circles, specifically with their parents and siblings.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Paola Ulloa López
AU  - Lesther Cedeño
AU  - Juan Pablo Sotomayor
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/10/22
TI  - Analysis of the Impact of the Social Media Filter Bubble on University Students. Case Study: Ecuador
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication and Applied Technologies 2025 (ICOMTA 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 58
EP  - 70
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_7
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_7
ID  - López2025
ER  -