When the internet first started to really connect the whole world, some of us -me included -thought that this would be the great 'coming together' of humankind. I thought that from this easily accessible international 'link-up' there would flow more understanding, solidarity and hope. Now, all these years later (not that many), those hopes seem more and more naive.
When we post stuff on sites(twitter and FB for example), do we ever ask ourselves why? Why is it so important for us to air and vent our gut instincts and knee jerk reactions to events and news items? Most of it is just a emotional reaction to things, I call them 'first instinct' reactions, with that I mean it's mostly what we think ,before we have all the facts or background. We read a headline and immediately we form an opinion, mostly before reading up on the details, because we want to be first with a point of view, the online forums are about speed, about being the first with an opinion about news item 'X' .
So we rant and we rage, unhindered by lack of knowledge or expert opinion, back in the day when news was a bit less speed and a bit more balanced, we used to weigh up the alternative points of view, and check them with our experiences and thoughts on the subject before we took a stand. Back then our thoughts on the subjects were only vented when in family circles or with friends or colleagues, that was 'live' so we had to be informed to counter any "ifs" or "buts" thrown up by 'live' people around us. But now in this 'social network' reality we live in, we don't really need argument, we just post our knee jerk reactions, there isn't the need to defend them with facts, because there is no debate, it's just us -basically talking to ourselves in a world wide forum. Anybody with a counter point of view is easily 'blocked' and we end up with just (unknown) friends that agree with our emotional rants. So we get almost no negative feed back, we can exclude ourselves from different points of view. Self criticism goes out the window, and we harden in our (hardly) thought out opinions.
When was the last time you changed your point of view after listening to rational argument? When was the last time you took the time to get and check all the facts before forming an opinion? I noticed this gradual change in myself, there is so much going on -non stop - on line that we don't give ourselves the time anymore for self criticism.
So, it's time to slow down, and also to admit that I (we) sometimes just have no opinions on things that are beyond our control anyway. What I do know is that with more and more so called information on-line it's getting more and more difficult to see the difference between truth and lies, between fact and fiction and real knowledge and 'made up science'.
We seem to be living in an age where 'everybody's point of view is equal' well here's the news ….. it's not. We are not all experts, we can have ways of looking at things, but not all thoughts on the subject matter at hand are equal, that's why some people are called experts.
So you might see my posts and tweets slowing down. When I want to react to something I will try to get some real information first, I will read up on the subject check my knee jerk reaction with reality before being a dick on line. Although by the time I've reached a balanced opinion,it will obviously be few days later, and the 'post' or 'tweet' will be no longer relevant, the shelf life for reactions is about 2 days after that it's old hat and we move on to the next topic or news item.
But it is a good exercise, just to stop and think sometimes about why you want to post about something, why you feel the need to vent these opinions? and maybe think about the content.
Why waste valuable 'life time' on stuff you don't know enough about, when you could be outside, in the real world.
No comments:
Post a Comment