Wise Crowds

James Surowiecki’s book mentioned in this chapter outlines four elements to create a so-called “wise crowd,” one that can make decisions better than experts. These include “diversity of opinion” and “independence.” Since social groups online seem to form crowds of many like-minded people, what caution would you give someone using information they find from a socialized website or resource?

Information found from these "wise crowds" can be very useful because most likely the group is very knowledgeable about the subject. But, if everyone in the group has the same opinion about the subject, the information could become very biased. For example, in a group about universities across the US in which it allows people to post about their own school, for the most part, the posts are going to be from people who all go to or went to that school and had positive experiences. This information could become extremely biased because in reality, these students have not gone to another school to compare theirs too. The main idea is that there is a tying factor to everyone in these "wise crowds" and that tying factor probably doesn't allow for much room to express strong opinions which are contrary to those of the group. Even if a group member did have an opposing opinion, there is a slim chance of them bringing it up because of the fear that the group would look down on them.