Is there an argument
that social media is not only making our social skills diminish, but also
ruining our brains? Yes. And that has to do directly with Brooke Gladstone's
"...the zing of authenticity".
You know the ringing in
your ears that occasionally happens? Well the social media has become that
shrill humming noise that never seems to go away. It is just constantly there
muddling our brains and making it almost impossible for us to think independently
for ourselves. Because of the humming it is easy to go along with whatever
social media says because it is almost painful to think beyond the humming.
In this age of
communication we are constantly overwhelmed with information. Some valid, most
of it not. Because of social media we are awarded the privilege hearing news
almost immediately after it happens. However, with all the good comes just as
much, if not more bad.
When we hear news so
quickly it is almost always inaccurate. The only accurate part of the news is
the fact that it happened, everything after that is pretty much always wrong.
Not intentionally, but because they are reporting it so quickly there is no
time to check facts or even know enough about the situation to report
accurately.
In a survey done by the
Pew Research Center, one respondent summed it up, “I believe Facebook is a good
way to find out news without actually looking for it.” This is the problem
with social media in today's world. We find news without looking for it, and we
never bother to search it out and verify it. Most of the time the fact that it
was on a social media site gives us the false sense of security that it is
accurate because it is a form of citizen journalism.
The most recent example of this is the Bunkerville showdown (I coined that term for future reference), the entire event unfolded before our eyes via social media.
There is a possibility that I received the brunt of it being related to three Bundy's, my news feed was full of 'news' from the showdown. There was an almost constant humming to the tune of Bunkerville.
I saw that a majority of people would re-post articles or pictures with a zeal that they were the first to have it among their friends.
While social media has
been bombarded with this news there is a pattern across the board of what it
really means.
People do their best to
select the exposure that they have to certain news stories. If they don't like
a particular story they tend to ignore it. By being selective of the exposure
they receive people tend to get only the side that they want and therefore
continue to assume that their side is the correct side.
So when people hear the
first side of a story and it happens to match their already clearly formed
opinions, they don’t question its authenticity.
Brooke Gladstone’s ‘zing
of authenticity’ is one of the best description for what has happened to our
ability to critically think about things that happen around us. We often take
the first word of news as the truth, that is what we remember the most, and for
the longest amount of time.
This can also be
compared with selective retention. Where we retain only that which we think is
pertinent to us and what we align ourselves with. Therefore, if the first news
that we hear happens to meet that criteria, we can (and do) remember that and
take it to be the truth.
Social Media has not
helped in this regard. We hear news quicker and in more abundance than ever
before. However, this does have its downfall as the news we hear is more often
than not inaccurate. But because we see it coming from our peers we assume its
validity.
Social Media has made us
dumber. I can't prove this as dumbness is subjective but social media has
played a part in our brains not being able to think critically and in depth
about our surroundings. Leading to us being victim to the 'zing of
authenticity'.
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