A chance to expand your horizon
Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash
When I started reading Medium regularly last fall, I was only sarching topics that I was more familiar with. Keywords I entered in the search field were “Japan,” “inspiration,” and “environment.” I encountered many interesting articles and authors.
Medium sent me email messages full of more articles. Its recommendations were based on articles I read or topics I followed.
After a while, however, I found myself reading similar content from mostly the same authors. It was easy to reinforce what I believe in, but I was not learning new things.
That’s the danger and limitation of not only Medium but any kind of online media, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Amazon. Their recommendations spitted out by their algorithm are based only on my past behavior. There is no surprise.
How can I replicate a similar experience as I would have in a huge bookstore? How can I encounter a totally new author, topic, or title, and end up selecting a book that I had never thought of?
With Medium, I implement two things.
First, I type some words I never typed before. I’ve never been to Latin America or Africa before, so I type those words. There are so many articles about such topics, and some writers are well-known as experts on these topics.
Second, I gauge my reading time. If the content is so new to me, it takes longer to read than what Medium indicates. My signal is if it takes longer to read, I’m learning something new.
I’m surprised to find out that I enjoy reading poetry, especially English Haiku and Tanka. A genre that I never would have thought I would ever be interested. Now I follow one of the publications of Tanka.
Change the topics to follow once in a while, type in some new keywords, and consciously stick to reading articles that take me longer to read… In order to expand my horizon of curiosities, I’m trying these things when reading Medium.
What is your practice to find new surprises in Medium articles?