The Intolerant, Misinformed Us

NASA makes it “official” that the earth would slip into 15 days of darkness. Using an app and changing your DP would automate some code which will count as a vote towards internet.org & against net-neutrality. The France Flag-gate. That Jasleen Kaur incident. The selective morality of Media & People. The Intolerance debate. Outraging against Outrages. 

The era we live in is often referred to as the Information age. Personally, it increasingly feels like a misnomer.

Yes, we are inundated with information from a zillion sources. The indexed web contains approximately 4.77 Billion pages, and then we have the Deep web too. Add to that a billion and a bit Social Media accounts. The rate at which information flows is fantastically ridiculous. There is nothing wrong with it. Information truly is wealth. But only if we know how to use it right.

For a race that is becoming increasingly educated, we seem to be losing the art of making informed choices. Any post, article, or image that looks or sounds remotely scandalous or "cool", goes into our Social Media pages, without a second thought. Diffusion of information has become more important than the legitimacy. And when the information is a bunch of unsubstantiated rumours, false claims, half-baked news, or just poorly worded to get the clicks, it makes the entire scenario all the more cacophonous. Even if the information is legitimate, the multitude of opinions formed by junta ends up making it exasperating. We just can’t seem to handle our Right to Speech. 

The Truth

How else do you explain Snapdeal's app being given a barrage of 1 star ratings by our "informed" junta, because its brand ambassador had an opinion that they don't buy? Yes, the method of outrage nowadays is just tweeting or uninstalling apps, but that's a story for a different blog.

The natural instinct of a human is to be a part of a community. And this extends to Social Media. The idea of virality is based on this psychological need of human beings. This flaw and our gullibility, in general, has made it easy to manipulate us. A hashtag, a picture, a post, or an article is all it takes for us to form opinions, and outrage if a different set of opinions arise. Our race has never been more egotistical.

The emotional need for a human being to be socially relevant, the ease of sharing information on Social Media, and the sheer abundance of information available on the internet (Legit or not) together has led us to the age of Misinformation. The only way past it seems to be shutting down Media and Social Media channels for a couple of months, and let the human race simmer down. Pretty confident we would still find a way to outrage though. A candle-light vigil every other day maybe?