Structurally, the change is in two areas:
1) The amount of information we receive now is much larger - earlier, it was limited to one or two newspapers, and perhaps a couple of news shows. Now, we get information everywhere: news on our phone, 24 hours news channels, news on social media, links to news posted by friends, etc.
2) Online media makes it easy for us to be broadcasters, and not just receivers. Every idiot with an internet connection can start a blog with an assumed name, and actively share his opinions with the world around them (oh wait...). So in addition to information, you are also getting opinions.
That's pretty minor, and quite obvious, right? However, the impact of this is phenomenal.
As the amount of information grows, the nature of how it is presented has also changed. Earlier, when you had one newspaper to read, you tended to take your time and read it in detail. Now, the competition for your time has increased. So information is being presented in a way that stands out and makes you want to absorb it. As you are faced with more and more things to absorb, the time that you can devote to any single bit of information is reduced. And that means information providers need to 'hook' you quickly.
Add to this the fact that the line between 'information' and 'opinion' is being blurred - as more and more erstwhile receivers start broadcasting their beliefs, you get exposed to all sorts of ideas: "sensible" ideas (which are, of course, ones you agree with), ideas which you disagree with and ideas which you find crazy.
You cannot help being exposed to this conversation in some shape or form, and it is very hard to avoid getting drawn in. So what happens now? Maybe the first time you hear a friend express an opinion you disagree with, you write a reasoned rejoinder. A few others chime in and you have a long discussion, which - as anyone who has ever had late night discussions on this topic in college will tell you - dont really go anywhere. The second time too, you have a reasoned discussion on this And the third. And the fourth.
What happens when you come across the same topic for the twentieth or fortieth time? Are you still going to have the discussion? No, you are going to suffer from what i called Discussion Fatigue, and you will resort to shorter, more dismissive answers. Impatience will make those answers more acerbic and more adversarial. And this goes both ways - you will be on the receiving end of similar, short answers as well (the anonymous nature of the internet makes this too easy, as well).
An interesting point about human nature - the more often you argue in favor of something, the more strongly you start believing in it. Even if you had moderate views on something, and the first few discussions were a variation of the Socratic method of discussion, the more you debate in favor of something, the more strongly you are going to get wedded to that belief. And the internet gives you PLENTY of options to debate.
So where does that leave us? Let's recap:
- you are getting bombarded by information of all types, which is increasingly trying to get your attention
- you are becoming more and more dogmatic in your beliefs by virtue of arguing about them all the time
- you feel the need to defend your beliefs against the 'siege' of differing viewpoints.
So you end up with a bunker mentality and go down the road of confirmation bias. You tend to focus on information that supports your point of view, and ignore information that doesnt and modify reality to ensure your beliefs remain valid (I call it the Lance Armstrong phenomenon* - more on that below). And guess what? The information providers realize this and adapt - they provide that information in increasingly small-sized bites calculated to get your attention. The headline becomes the information, veracity and nuance get the chop.
So the nature of the information that is being presented is also increasingly polarized and extreme, to match the increasingly polarized viewpoints that people hold. And what is the outcome of this? Complex issues with shades of grey get reduced to "either-or" dichotomies in stark black and white, and people fall over themselves to get on their respective side of the battle lines. And they start "transmitting" their own more extreme position, creating a correspondingly stronger opposing response. In other words, we are now in a vicious cycle of greater polarization of beliefs.
And because people lack the intellectual objectivity to rationally analyze their own beliefs, only facts that fit their beliefs are considered and the rest rejected. So now opinion trumps reality, and there is no shortage of informational sources to support whatever far-fetched opinion you want to have. After all, we live in an era where freedom to have an opinion has somehow transformed into a belief that all opinions are valid.
In other words, the idiots are driving things. If you have a working brain (and the fact that you have read all the way to this end implies that you do), this should really piss you off. It sure annoys me.
That's why i have started this blog. And yes, the irony isn't lost on me.
*The Lance Armstrong effect is a classic example of people change their value system/reality rather than face up to the fact that their beliefs were wrong: so many people worshipped Uniball as a great hero. Credible doping allegations against him existed pretty much after his first couple of Tour wins, but no one believed them because he wrote a book where he said he didnt dope. Others cheated, not him. When he was busted, these same people changed their tune and said the bust was incorrect/he was innocent/it was all circumstantial/etc - in other words, the overwhelming evidence was wrong and Pharmstrong was clean. And then when he actually admitted to doping, the narrative changed to "but everyone else dopes/he has done so much work for cancer". People tied themselves into knots trying to find excuses and changing the parameters of reality (ie, doping is cheating) rather than just accept that their beliefs were wrong.
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