Ugh

The level of ugliness keeps rising, and I've noticed a new horrific development.

Many people have become incapable of being embarrassed.

I see people post things that are untrue, and when someone points that out, they simply ignore the advice that they have been duped and stay the course.

There is no, "OOPS, I was duped", or "I'm sorry I didn't research that before I posted it", there is just move on to post the next passionate meme or video clip.

There is a phenomenon that has been studied for many years called confirmation bias.  Confirmation bias is the tendency for humans to seek data that confirms our hypotheses, and to more readily believe data that confirms our hypotheses.

Confirmation bias is stronger when it is related to emotional issues.  So when I'm trying to be kind and non-judgemental, I think that people's confirmation bias has overridden their sense of decency.

But come on man!  The crazy stuff  that people post on social media is just crazy.  Am I the only one who knows what Snopes is?

I know in the heated political climate right now a lot of people want to make their point.  They want to find the one story, video, piece of evidence, etc. that proves their candidate is the right candidate.

I want to share a little something with you.  The more outrageous and easily disproved your last post was, the less likely I am to even read your next post.

And in spite of how hard I try to not judge, unless it is clear your post was sarcastic, I'm going to put you in the intellectually lazy pile.  I know, terribly judgy of me.

But I really believe we all owe each other better than to just repeat what we hear without making sure it is true.  Because another facet of confirmation bias is that it impacts our memories.  So when someone hears something that supports their emotional position on a topic, even if they find out later it is not true, they may very well remember it as true.

Freaky, huh?

So we are in danger of having a society filled with people who passionately believe totally false information they have gotten from social media.  And that is scary.

We have a parallel phenomenon in which entertainers present themselves as news commentators, so that people believe they are hearing factual news when they are actually hearing very biased opinion.

News has facts.  News does not present people or events as good or bad.  Just as things that happened.  Real news allows the viewer or reader to decide how to feel about any particular news story.

And while we are at this whole scary place we are in discussion, I have another truth bomb.  Just because you and any number of other people believe something, it doesn't make it true.

I am continually amazed by the things that people I always thought were reasonably intelligent post on social media or say in conversation as factual.  Run it past the logic filter.  Check multiple sources for congruence of data.  Do anything besides take the intellectually lazy position of deciding because you agree with the emotion the information provokes that it is true.

Read Fahrenheit 451.  Think about what the book is communicating while you are reading it, and then think about how you are living.

Try harder to seek truth instead of confirmation.  It is really important.