Not Much Between It's Ears

Image courtesy of Christian Darkin

By Ronald Michael Quijano, LPT

The modern world has a lot to offer, while the modern human has a lot to consume. While seeing how humans behave on an everyday basis, my hope, my urge to influence, my will to educate stultify. The world is facing a lot of significant issues right now, and it seems, few bats an eye. From climate change to socio-economic problems, from education to political loopholes, from climate change to numerous animal extinction, everyone seems to care more about their favorite social media influencer, or which hero is the best in Mobile Legends, than these issues. Furthermore, we have access to higher knowledge and information, more accurate scientific procedures, and state-of-the-art equipment, so where do we think we went wrong? 

In this essay, I will be discussing what I think the factors that lead humanity on the edge. I’ll be providing scientific data, studies, and articles to back up my reasons. My advice to the readers is to try to reconsider your position in the world, by mere reflecting on the things happening around you, try to think, try to solve, try to analyze, try to search, and try to navigate, guided by logical reasoning and empirical evidence and not just by mere intuition and by your cultural superstition. This essay will be divided into 5 series, with each issue to be discussed in a detailed manner, since I believe each topic deserves their own essay. I will start the series by analyzing what I think the very foundation in which an individual must first understand - Epistemic responsibility. 

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

 One thing, in particular, that affects or influences effectively the views of an individual about the world is social media. I know that there are different classifications of social media, however, I would like to narrow down its definition or context for the convenience of the reader. In this essay, the context of social media would be a website or an application that is designed to share content and information quickly and efficiently in real-time.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and any leading social media that are being used every day affects us on a large scale. Social media has been a revolutionary concept of sharing information throughout human history. And this has never happened before in any given circumstance. During medieval times, books are hard to be accessed by the public. It’s also tedious to be distributed. If you want a copy of that book, you need to write it down manually. But today, with the help of social media, news, books, lectures, current events, and information in any given field can be shared efficiently. It placates the process of sharing data. But I believe, the problem started when we gave the product of knowledge to the mass but not the knowledge itself. Our technology has never been advanced as it is today, so the more advanced the tools are, the more ethical, moral, and intelligent you must be, or else, we will be a walking disaster. Ever wonder which information on the internet is true? It is hard now to determine, especially if you don’t know the process to spot fake news. And if you are easily persuaded by things that sound cool, convincing, and humorous - without verifying the information in the first place - then you are really a disaster to the society. By using such advanced media, responsibility must be taken seriously. I cannot blame those who have misled by the information they knew since propaganda, hoaxes, misinformation, and satire has been around even before the invention of social media.

 Satires are commonly found in social media in a form of meme or troll. For most users, they are easily persuaded by how this news or information is being delivered. They think it is true because it sounds funny, and it catches the attention of the mass effortlessly. The most common argument in social media is delivered with extreme buffoonery and it makes the argument sounds righteous even if it's not. This kind of behavior distorted the goal of having a healthy discussion, it converts the goal from finding the truth to hurting their feelings - Ad Hominem, when a person directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining. They are attacking the person rather than the argument. Most common insults are calling who oppose them as "Bobo", "Tanga", and many more. Remember that just because you are good in trash talk, trolling, or making memes doesn't mean that your argument is righteous. Another factor that embarks upon amplifying misinformation is its popularity. In social media, the truth now relies on the number of shares, likes, and the number of people who use the same argument. Ad Populum - Given the fact, people are easily persuaded by popular opinion. They view their argument as bandwagon waving their banner all over the place. Gaining popularity does not change the degree to which an argument lies. 

There are times that an individual filters information and only accept data that comfort or satisfy his/her preconceived notion. Beliefs, ideologies, and extreme fanaticism are often, or if not, always raises the case of misinformation. This is confirmation bias - a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms your previously existing beliefs or biases. For example; you are very fanatic to the president of your country, so whenever you see a piece of news that praises the president for something good, you rejoice, but whenever he/she is involved in some scandal, you will reject that information without verifying it from the first place since it hurts your personal, fixed notion. We ought to accept the only things that bias our beliefs and factions. Another thing to point out is that people are easily persuaded by popular opinion. As long as the majority hold such accounts, it will seem to be the right thing to follow. Ad Populum - where argument seems to be right because of its popularity. In the Philippines, I believe that was in the month of May 2019, when this fake news about the president of the Philippines removed the K-12 program, and some of the students bestowed violent reactions immediately and shared it countless times without even verifying it at the first place. Remember when the post about Agartha became popular and everyone became an expert on conspiracy theories? Agartha is a legendary Kingdom that is said to be located in the Earth's core. It is related to the belief in a hollow Earth and is a popular subject in esotericism. Everyone gone awry, concern more about this myth than climate change. William Kingdom Clifford - an English mathematician and philosopher - published an article titled “The Ethics of Belief”, where he argued that it is very irresponsible for someone to hold such beliefs without evidence at all. Beliefs that are left unchecked soon will affect decisions and worldviews. He summed up his argument in a famous dictum: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence." A good example of how dangerous unexamined beliefs can be is when measles made an outbreak in the Philippines in the month of February 2019. One of the main reasons is that most parents believed this speculation that vaccines cause different diseases, therefore decided that their children are not to be vaccinated. As of writing, over 12,700 measles cases have been officially reported by DOH with 203 deaths from 1 January to 23 February 2019. Over half of the measles cases are under 5 years of age, with a median age of 2 years old.  Of the total measles cases, 63% have not been vaccinated, 19% have an unknown number of doses and 16% have unknown vaccination status. DOH has reported rising measles since last year with 18,407 cases in 2018 compared to 2,428 cases in 2017 – a nearly 8-fold increase in measles cases. These are just examples and there are countless more. They will easily believe the things that are trending, whatever the case will be. Memes and trolls have a huge effect on making something seems So here are the things you might want to do whenever you encounter information online;

1. Rational Mindset

It is very important not to let your emotion but in whenever you encounter something. Fake news is believable most often because of its "shock factor". You need to disregard your existing position and evaluate the information thoroughly. 

2.   Check the Source

Do not disregard such a significant factor. Do not be affected by your biases. In the world of information of knowledge, the goal is to seek the truth, and no to prove whether you are right or wrong. Make sure to check the reliability of the source. If you are not certain, do not share it.

3.   Collect References

The more reliable source you have, the better. One should not rely on only one or two. Remember that an issue must have contemporary and consistent reports to be verified. Do not be lazy, you do not want to amplify such wrong information to the crowd. 

4.   Examine the Evidence

Remember that the goal is to debunk the news whatever it is. Evidence must be tested and checked, it is always a significant factor in doing your research. Any conclusion without evidence will remain an assumption or hypothesis. Check the Evidence-Based Practice, you will learn more from that. 

The role of social media is not just to give echo about something, it is a way to amplify it. Always keep in mind that you need to be open to the idea that your beliefs or preconceived notions might be false, that's one way that holding onto them can really mean anything. We, humans, are social and rational animals, we must deem to recognize that we must live our life as rational as possible, only then we can attain stable social and moral structure. When we are engaged in critical colloquy, remember that the point of a formal debate is never to persuade, and to make someone agree to you because of your good articulation. The core purpose of philosophy is never to win an argument, but to extract the truth, or to get one step closer to the truth.