How we are purposefully protected from our sensitive selves
In the wake of the continued gun violence in America, I’m continually frustrated by our government’s unwillingness to reform gun control. No, this won’t be another infuriated and half-sensical rant. If that interests you, check out my Facebook Live post. It’s a doozy!
This blog post instead reflects on another emotion I felt when I heard the news of the indecision and stubbornness of the Senate, House of Representatives, and other government bodies: complete shock. I immediately reasoned with myself, “How is this even possible? Surely, based on my Facebook feed, a majority of Americans are desperate for reform. Obviously this is just the work of our corrupted politics and manipulative lobbyists.” But then it finally dawned on me: I’m only basing these assumptions off my small little purview of the world. One that has been designed just for me. And those assumptions are flat-out wrong.
Think about it, what are the main sources you use to become informed? Mine happen to be a fine blend of my Facebook feed and the subreddits I follow. Sure, sometimes I might get a flash of a news story from a TV at a bar, but those flashes also come from a majority of biased news networks. Ninety-five percent of the time though, I get news and updates on issues from platforms that I choose to subscribe to, or from systems that are delivering information based on my history of “liking” related content. I’m not a typical millennial in most respects, but I would wager a guess that this is the emerging trend of our generation.
This focused delivery creates a very warped sense of reality. It’s condensed my view of the world to like-minded opinions of my direct peers. Basically, I’m stuck under the dome that my social media platform and I made together.
We all do this. We willingly create the parameters of this dome; with every upvote, every favorite, every like and then we end up missing out on unique perspectives, albeit ones that will probably infuriate us. Because of this, we hardly engage in discussions and debates. We’ve lean so far to one extreme that we only see “our” side of an argument in our feeds. The feeds being determined by an algorithm, based on our digital behavior. And we see a solidarity of support for that post, with rarely any level-headed opposition.
At this point, we’re so easily convinced of what is the “right” perspective. Can you blame us? We’re being bombarded from all sides of our designated social media presets.
So why fight the opinion that we’re constantly surrounded by?
Because stepping outside of that opinion can help us advance as a culture. It can foster discussions that lead to much-needed transformation. It can help us keep an open mind to continue to learn empathy. It’s how we can truly understand all sides of an issue and create change. That’s why.
When did we become un-unbiased?
I’m proud of my Greek roots, even if they only make up 25% of my DNA. These guys were the “first” for so many things, including creating the foundation of critical thinking: The Socratic Method. For those of you who are unfamiliar, quite simply: this is a method of critical thinking which involves asking questions to spur new perspectives of an issue, rather than endlessly debating with facts and opinions. What I love about this approach is the core principle: Question. Everything. Even the questions that were asked in the first place.
I feel Socrates (whose name I habitually mispronounce, due to a certain excellent adventure) also helped to create an important standard for presenting and discussing issues : The Virtue of Being Unbiased.
With a mixture of rose colored glasses and unfounded nostalgia, I fondly remember Walter Cronkite and his nightly news crew at CBS. (I’ve only seen clips on YouTube, but baby boomers can confirm my observations). The news team might not have employed the Socratic method when reporting the news (obviously you need to make statements when recounting the events of the day), but those broadcasts along with many others of the time were straightforward and provided the facts, free of editorial viewpoints. It was the pinnacle of the Unbiased News Cycle. Americans could hear the facts, let themselves process the information and then create their own informed opinions. They might have even engaged in a sudo-Socratic discussion of their own with their peers, before reactively having an uninformed and emotionally fueled opinion.
Fast forward to the dawn of cable television and the 24-Hour News Network. Here we learned the power of editorial news reporting. You can’t just harp on the same facts for 24 hours straight, right? That would bore us enough to go outside and leave the television! So why not introduce panels of experts, who have specific viewpoints and opinions about the stories? At first they might have even debated in civil tones, with respect of other people’s positions. But as we are aware, that quickly changed.
Fervent responses during these panel discussions, heated shouting matches, and extremist viewpoints generated better ratings. And so these same personalities were invited back again and again to continue the debates. Slowly, but surely certain news networks also found their own partisan identities. I’d love to blame the Nielsen Ratings system, but I’m sureit there were many other factors at play.
A majority of the current news content we consume is sourced from news networks who unabashedly embrace their partisan viewpoints. Sure there are programs, like 60-minutes, who still try to look at both sides of the coin, but these programs don’t generate a fraction of what the big media/news companies do. And this is the content that fuels many posts on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other sites. The partisan news cycle also influenced a new era of digital news networks. They follow in the same “successful” footsteps of their big brothers by also picking a side and reporting to that group of followers.
Right now, the news is polarizing. You can easily watch two different networks about the same story, and come away with two vastly different accounts of the events. We have a wealth of shared analytics and research that are tactfully sourced to spin stories, and create skewed narratives. To me, and many others, there are doing a disservice to people trying to create an informed and non-partisan opinion on issues. Once again, we’re bombarded by extreme perspectives that instantly cause us to form a rash opinion.
What’s worse, we rarely watch the news networks that are opposed to our viewpoints. You might react with, “Why would I? I would just disagree. I know they won’t inform my decision because they are so bias.” And I can empathize, but effectively we’ve built another part of our dome that isolates us further into our own points of view. We keep creating the divide.
I’m over this trend of endlessly yelling editorialized viewpoints at each other to influence us to share the “correct” perspective. I long for the boring, unbiased content to re-become the primary source of enlightened discussions and continued conversations.
Divided by digital subcultures
An argument can be made that we choose to put ourselves in these specific digital subcultures. That we choose to only follow people or organizations we inherently agree with. We also choose not to engage with people, polls, opinions or arguments that take an opposing stand to where we stand. I can only agree completely.
The problem is, the popular platforms we interact with push further engagement with like-minded ideals before introducing contrary viewpoints.
Also, these platforms push us to NOT engage with content generated by opposing perspectives, for fear of being ridiculed. Like-minded folks hive together and promote each other’s’ similar opinions, memes, posts and shared videos.
There also aren’t enough incentives for people to offer opposition on posts they don’t agree with. They could be anonymously hounded by internet trolls. Their responses won’t garner the same likes, upvotes, or other positive feedback as the original poster, which leads to inaction. And the post itself, because of exposure determined by algorithms, won’t reach an audience that would be receptive to the opposing feedback.
Worst of all, we have trained ourselves to have such short attention spans. More than half of the people who started reading this article didn't make it this far. Mark my words. We’ve stopped discussing issues at length to gain a better understanding. We talk in bullet points. We share edited videos that only showcase highlights that are pertinent to our viewpoint. We create visuals that only share the facts that align with what we believe.
Having said that, the previous tactics mentioned are effective ways to spread news. Absolutely. They encourage sharing information and educate with efficiency. But when they only get passed around in the same social circles; when stay contained in the same bubble; and when other opposing media can’t penetrate the bubble, that’s a problem. One that probably needs to change so we can become more well versed, balanced individuals.
I have mad respect for people who challenge each other’s posts and engage in conversation on these social platforms, but I feel it’s not enabled as much as it could be.
Forming future opinions
I’ll readily admit, there are so many digital tools and platforms I’m unaware of. There might be a few out there that promote richer dialogues and encourage engagement for people with conflicting opinions, I just haven’t seen them. If you know of some, please share them in the comments below!
Nothing would be better than returning to presenting facts and forming unbiased opinions first, before being reactive and stuck in our ways. But that’s just my biased opinion… :D
Let’s break out of our domes and engage in a fresh way. I would love to see future platforms that allow opposing viewpoints to engage in the Socratic Method, so we can continue question everything and expand our perspectives. The world is getting more interconnected, so let’s truly hear everyone’s voice and have a greater understanding of everyone’s viewpoints. Because they are all valid.
…except for people who hate dogs. What the hell is wrong with those guys?