Opinion: America, Social Media and Our Race to the Bottom

PixabayPhoto bygeralt

We all react. Sometimes we regret it, sometimes we don’t, but we all do it.

Someone hits the horn on the freeway just before cutting you off. Up comes the middle digit.

Someone appears to be cutting in line at Starbucks. “Hey, hey, you can’t do that.” It’s just the husband giving his order to his wife.

We think we’re thinking when we react, but that’s not how it works. Reaction is involuntary. Something is said or done and a thought enters our head or a word leaves our mouth. It’s done before we know it.

In today’s world, thanks to social media and five-second sound bites we’re reacting more than ever, which means we are thinking about things less than ever.

An email enters your inbox, it can’t be right, no way. You pass it on. Express your anger and frustration.

Only it’s false. Never happened. But your email and message are out there. Your opinion about nothing is making the rounds and people are believing it. It fits with how they’re feeling. What they’re thinking. Even when we’re not.

Fake is nothing new. Fake news. Fake deals. Fake Rembrandts. Fake has been happening for centuries and it happens because people need and want things.

They want to own a Rembrandt a Jackson Pollock or a 1914 Honus Wagner baseball card. They want to feel connected or right when so many things around them are out of their control.

So, we take the reins. We retweet the message. Re-post the image. It’s what she said, in Congress, on Thursday, and it's not right.

Only she wasn't in Congress, she was in Philadelphia on Thursday celebrating her daughter’s birthday. It didn’t happen.

We reacted. We didn’t think. We didn’t need to.

Others are doing it for us and we’re used to believing what seems real.

That cereal is good for us. That treadmill is state-of-the-art. One vitamin is like eating two pounds of fresh kale.

We’re trusting when the information we’re getting matches the way we’re feeling. Left out, not listened to, overlooked, or just too busy.

Fake is real. It sounds right. It reads right. Someone nailed it. Understood us. Knows what we’re going through.

Ever wonder how the psychic knew your father died? Your dog ran away last week or your love life is about to improve?

Clues. Observations, probability, and surveys all bring in information that is then used to convince you someone knows what you’re going through.

The business guru is up on stage showing you images of how you looked when your business failed. How it felt. What you did. How you reacted.

Then comes the promise. The program. The package of CDs.

But not everyone or everything is fake, far from it. Fake is easy. Real is hard.

Real takes work. Takes double-checking, verifying, and not accepting the first report about anything.

It takes knowing how to break down a fact into its constituent parts. When it was said. Who said it? Were they there? Who else was there, what did they see and hear?

Assuming the guy was cutting the line at Starbucks is easy because people do it all the time. It’s real. It happens. Just not every time.

There’s a difference. But with deep fakes and fake news, it’s getting harder to tell real from easy.

So, we keep reacting. We accept the report. The speech. The statistics that appear to come out of nowhere or from a college no one has ever heard of.

Unthinking America is a symptom of social media, endless news feeds, algorithms, and being too busy, too harried and stressed, and too short on cash while working two jobs.

We don’t have the time to do the research so we pick someone we trust and make it easy on ourselves.

What happens when we don’t think and just react? Mistakes are made, and accidents happen. People get elected that shouldn’t. People get believed when they shouldn’t.

It’s a mess.

It’s preventable.

Trust less, check more. Unthinking is a habit.

Break it.