Information cocoon means that people only choose the information they are interested in to receive on the Internet. Just like silkworms, they trap themselves in the center of their preferred information and think that their information is unique.

Information cocoon house refers to the phenomenon that people's attention to the information field will be habitually guided by their own interests, thus confining their lives to cocoon houses like cocoons. Because information technology provides a more self-thinking space and a vast amount of knowledge in any field, some people may further escape various social contradictions and become isolated.

Although communication within communities is more efficient, communication between communities may not be smoother and more effective than in the era of information shortage. The concept of "information cocoon house" has many historical origins. As early as the19th century, the French thinker Tocqueville had discovered that a democratic society is naturally conducive to the formation of individualism and will spread with the expansion of equal status.

In Sunstein's view, the network information age has brought more information and choices, which seems to be more democratic and free, but it also contains the destruction of democracy. From the personal representation of the network cocoon house, we can find that the network cocoon house is displayed in the form of "personal daily life".

Polarization of network groups

Through differentiation and aggregation, the groups gathered under the network show the characteristics of homogeneity within the group and heterogeneity between the groups. Once the network information cocoon is created, the communication between group members and the outside world will be greatly reduced, and the views and opinions of group members are also very similar. The more obvious the homogeneity characteristics within a group are, the more obvious the heterogeneity characteristics between groups will be.

The spiral theory of silence put forward by German scholar Elizabeth Noel-Neumann holds that the more people are silent, the more others think a particular point of view is representative. In online public opinion, when people see that many people agree with a certain point of view, they will participate more actively, constantly strengthen this point of view and promote it to spread to a wider range, get more people's support and promote homogeneity within the group.