# Filter and Label Your Email
## NU News Filter Rule
Filtering your email is rather simple and can be organized into your own folders by going into the Outlook settings on your account. There you can create rules of what you want outlook to filter and create personalized folders for specific information.

This screenshot shows me creating a rule and folder labeled "NU News" where all emails from [e-mail] are filtered into my specified folder.

## Creating My Own Rule
Since I am on the Northeastern Swim and Dive Team, I get many emails from my coaches weekly about information regarding meets, practices, and many more. So when creating my own rule, I decided to filter out all of the emails that are from my coaches Roy Coates and Katie Rivers. I named the rule "Go NU Swim and Dive" and added the condition for "From" and both of my coaches' emails. Then for the action, I chose move to and created a folder labeled the same thing.

## Reading Connections
Like filtering your email, although most of the time without our knowledge or doing, the internet filters and customizes the media we see to our personality traits, beliefs, and more. Filtering emails are harmless and ultimately promotes organization and productivity. On the other hand, when the internet filters the media, news, and other forms of content to your beliefs, it can be extremely harmful as it can amplify cognitive biases and create a more polarized community. The article [“How Filter Bubbles Distort Reality: Everything You Need to Know”](https://fs.blog/filter-bubbles/) brings up this point and explains how our computers automatically track our searches, clicks, and likes as a way to filter and feed us new information catered to our beliefs and interests. The personalization of the media we receive, although in theory sounds like a good idea, creates what the article defines as, “filter bubbles” that confine you into a small community of articles and media that align with your beliefs. One of the most significant problems with the filter bubbles is, unlike filtering emails, we often will not realize that the information we are seeing is specifically picked and filtered to our perspectives. Eli Pariser coined the term “filter bubble” and explained that it is like a “personal ecosystem” that “insulates us from any sort of cognitive dissonance by limiting what we see.” This is overall harmful to society as it polarizes political groups and impacts nations' elections. The article mentions how the bubbles have altered our democratic society, which was once open to others’ ideas and has made society more restricted in our own beliefs.

The power the internet has in tracking and filtering our information makes it extremely important for people to question the media they consume. As discussed in class, articles that we read can often spread biases and false information so when considering the trustworthiness of a web page you can “triangulate” its credibility by questioning the author, purpose of the article, publication/format, date of publication, and many more. As Danah Boyd states in her article [“Did Media Literacy Backfire,”](https://points.datasociety.net/did-media-literacy-backfire-7418c084d88d#.d46kox6e1) it is a necessity to critically evaluate the articles you read. She explains how “media literacy” is achieved when you are able to understand what sources you can and cannot trust. In the US, individualism is often emphasized, and when it comes to the information we consume online, people feel that they are in charge of educating themselves through their own research. This can lead to people using biased and faulty media sources if they don’t question the credibility of the articles.

Faulty media sources surround us daily as Claire Wardle explains in the article [“Understanding Information Disorder.”](https://firstdraftnews.org/long-form-article/understanding-information-disorder/) There are “imposter websites” that are designed to look like professional and credible sources, and feed people misleading and fake news. Disinformation, as defined in the article, is “content that is intentionally false and designed to cause harm.” The spread of disinformation is motivated by money, political influence, and just for the purpose of causing trouble. Disinformation can come in many different forms including satire, manipulated content, misleading content, false context, and more. Ultimately, the overwhelming presence of disinformation shows the necessity of critically evaluating the media you consume.