In the final chapter of Digital Cosmopolitans, Zuckerman provides a number of suggestions – at both the national and personal levels – on how we can attempt to rewire our connections to expose ourselves to new and different perspectives. The first suggestion that Zuckerman makes in our personal rewiring is to be aware of what our current consumption habits are. In order to experience serendipity online, Zuckerman describes a similar principle that we should follow: “It’s possible to wander with a purpose. The flaneur strolls the streets as a strategy for encountering and understanding the city. We can wander in ways that seek serendipity” (230).

So, for this assignment, I attempted to do two things. Sadly, I rely too much on Facebook for getting news and updates, and so it was clearly a limiting factor for me. Thus, the first part was to disconnect from two digital spaces that I use quite frequently: Facebook and Google. The second was to increase the possibilities of encountering new, foreign, unfamiliar sources of information by using DuckDuckGo.

Instead of deleting Facebook directly, I tried to simply avoid using it. I was surprised at how difficult it was to resist opening up the Facebook app during this experiment. Sometimes, I would (almost automatically/mindlessly) start opening the app to check for any updates, before remembering to stop. A lot of the news I see on Facebook is focussed on events/things happening in Toronto or, more broadly, in Ontario (my province), ranging from posts about the weather, to the government, to the newest food fad. Besides updates from home, a lot of posts relating to NYUAD also take up my feed. Avoiding Facebook for a day made me notice the absence of these two sources, but also made me realize how limiting Facebook can be, in terms of news intake and connecting with others. 

In terms of searching for content, switching from Google to DuckDuckGo was quite enjoyable. It was weird but pleasant to know that my online presence wasn’t being tracked, and whenever I searched for anything – whether an article, or a youtube video, or the answer to some random query I had – the results weren’t biased from my previous search histories. I also enjoyed the experience of not having ads pop up, that were influenced by my location or my web history. Although this didn’t automatically expose me to new channels of information, it did provide the possibility of wandering on to an unfamiliar path on the web. I will definitely continue using DuckDuckGo – and be more conscious of the connections and channels I use online.