The role of the internet in fragmenting the public sphere has been the subject of some scholarly and journalistic interest, most recently in Eli Pariser's excellent
The Filter Bubble, which shows how Google, Facebook and other major actors filter our web searches, updates etc according to our user profiles and previous cyberhistories. So if I am an environmentalist typing "climate change" into Google, I get a different set of results from you, if you are an oil executive. The filter bubble operates on Amazon by giving personal recommendations; in its more insidious ways, it tailors our web searches to confirm our pre-existing world view without us noticing. Eventually, we may drift apart and end up living in different worlds.
