The Wisdom of 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?

The point of a “wise crowd” is that a diverse collection of independently-deciding individuals is likely to make certain types of decisions and predictions better than individuals or even experts. The key word in that definition is DIVERSE. For this reason, an online social group would not be as reliable in making decisions because it is made up of like-minded people. The caution here is that if people think too much alike then different information will not be considered and errors will not be balanced out. If people in an online social group are conscious of one another's opinions on certain issues, then they will begin to follow each other and conform even more, rather than bring in differing views. Two very important criteria for a wise crowd are diversity and independence. If people are aware of the decisions of others than their opinion could sway and a correct answer could be overlooked. Since this could be the case, if someone is using information that they find from a socialized website, they should be wary of the information they are receiving and may want to check it over with a different type of group.