While many high school students spent their downtime during the pandemic catching up on social media or bingeing Netflix shows, Caleb Hyun, a rising senior at Raisbeck Aviation High School in Tukwila, learned to code.
Hyun's inspiration came from seeing friends' polarizing social media posts about current events. The lack of meaningful dialogue led Hyun to do some soul-searching.
"Even in my world, on social media I would see my friends and people that I would consider very reasonable people reposting things that really weren't reasonable," Hyun said. "Things that would push people away instead of pulling people in and trying to have respectful conversations."
Starting in April 2020, Hyun spent more than two years learning to code and building Balanced Media, a web extension that allows users to rate articles based on their biases. Using the crowdsourced ratings, Balanced Media identifies how the article leans politically, if at all, and to what degree.
Hyun describes himself as having very little computer science knowledge and only some basic coding knowledge before starting Balanced Media. After coming up with the idea more than two years ago, he had to teach himself JavaScript, HTML and jQuery to get building. He said the process involved lots of trial and error, YouTube videos and late nights.
"As it gets later, you get stupider and stupider, so it was just really a struggle for some of it," Hyun said.
Hyun's dad also has some computer science knowledge and was able to help. In June 2021, after spending more than a year building the proof of concept, Hyun enlisted the help of classmates. Balanced Media, which officially launched this month, now has a team of seven people.
Balanced Media is free to download. Hyun said the group filled out nonprofit registration paperwork and is waiting for a response, and the platform will likely run on donations and grants.
The extension currently has about 20 beta users, but the team hopes to grow users, and in turn strengthen the self-balancing function of the platform through more promotion.
Balanced Media's launch comes at a time of growing political divide in America. A new Pew Research Center study indicates that deeply negative views of the opposing party are far more widespread than in the past. A FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll conducted in May and June found extremism and polarization ranked third out of 20 issues for the most important issue facing the U.S.
Hyun said that after doing some research, he felt a big part of the problem is people don't hear viewpoints about nuanced issues from the other end of the political spectrum. He added that Balanced Media doesn't aim to eliminate bias but make biases more transparent.
In addition to Balanced Media and school, Hyun also plays tennis. He hasn't yet decided where he is going to college but is getting ready to start applying soon.
"I'm looking at doing business or computer science," Hyun said. "There's so many opportunities in those different fields. They're things that I enjoy, especially having created this platform. There's a huge learning curve for coding, but it's one of the most rewarding things I've done."
