When was the last time you have seen a casual debate in real life? Probably a long time back. I grew up watching some casual debates in some Television shows. Some of them still exists. Not gonna lie, it is fun to watch them at times. Almost all of the debates I see myself around nowadays are mostly turning into serious debates, often turning into verbal (or) even physical fights.
I was just normally chilling in my life, doing my 9 to 5 job, vibing with my people, but then I often noticed people having too much extreme thoughts around me. That’s when I felt like this is a huge issue which should be addressed, if not, atleast should be made aware about. Now 90% of people who reads this might get offended. But hey, hear me out with a calm and relaxed mind.
Now, I recently started noticing that people are turning hardcore supporters of any one side. People who like communism, absolutely hate capitalism and vice versa; People who like iOS, bash android to the core; If you’re like me who is from India, people who support left wing politics often preach the right wing parties as similar to something like a SATAN, happens the other way too.
Often times, atleast in my opinion, when I was a kid, these discussions still existed. But they were never debated in this scale. People clash with their opinions like fire and water. Good segway to RRR movie where I found this reference from. Great movie, by the way.
Anyway, coming back to our debate. I mean, our polarizing world, This issue of polarization seems very recent as far as I have noticed. All thanks to social media. Now, you might ask, “Vignesh, why are you blaming social media for this?”. Hear me out, I got some really fine statements.
Social media and anonymity:
Back in the days, before the era of social media, (I’m talking about news channels as well), people had the only option of talking or giving speech to people in the actual real life medium. Now, in real life, you cannot make mistakes. Your gestures, your body language, your tone, everything plays some part in the message you’re conveying to people. You can say the same thing both in a sarcastic way and in an offensive way. All thanks our pocket computers and the ever rising social media, people can finally find a way to comment or convey anything without showing their actual presence. You can call it a win for introverts since they can FINALLYYY!!! FINALYYYYYY!!!! express their thoughts in this newly globalized world. Or, you can call it as a way to the rise of misinformation because of this anonymity.
Will Free Speech work everywhere?
Human society will always have people with extreme idealogies, but the percent is very miniscule. The truth is, most of them, don’t care about any extreme idealogies. Free speech is a fundamental right. But there’s also a bit of risk of society misusing it. You cannot make everyone on earth believe that the earth is flat and not round just because now you have the freedom of expressing your ideas. People were always told that 99% of what we see on social media is fake. Most of the content posted are staged, etc. But somehow, subconciously, our poor brain gets influenced by it.
Is it a bad thing? No, not at all. Humans always take inspiration from our earlier statements.
The Algorithm Nightmare:
Hey, I like capitalism. I think it gives an incentive to people to work hard, gives companies a healthy competition and thus, the market also gets better products. But, one by-product of capitalism which we humans accidentally invented is Multi National Companies (or) more specifically, Big Tech Companies.
Big Tech Companies are more profit-driven, just like any other Public companies around the globe. But the tech, which they invented, is silently creating chaos in the world. The algorithms used in almost all social media, is content driven, user-personalized.
Let’s say, I watched a video in YouTube about “Perks of Android”. Now, my YT algorithm will recommend more of positives of android where people bash iOS for no reason. This certainly profits them because of my rise in platform engagement in YouTube. But, our tiny brain subconciously absorbs the statement I just watched again and again.
This reminds me of my childhood, where in school, We were made to memorize poems exactly the same way it is originally written by saying it everyday. Gosh, I still remember some of them now. Thank you, Indian Education System. Watching too much of same content creates this phenomenon in our brain. It makes us believe what we just saw, even though we don’t really know what exactly happened. Just because that information came to our feed a few times, we are now believing that we just found the truth. Doesn’t it sound alarming?
Where is the truth?
I always believe truth is always in the middle, atleast when it comes to internet arguments. There’s nothing too good or nothing too bad. It all depends on the way how we humans look at something. It is very easy to get scared for a horror movie if you believe ghosts or feel nothing if you don’t believe in it. Wish there’s a way to confuse the algorithm based on my neutral preferences, haha.
My problem is not with the statements made on the internet. But people amplifying those statements, which they now believe is true. Even if the truth might not be in their side, people are doubling down on what they believe is the truth and they mute their ears to hear the other side, and that is a problem. Lets come back to our Fire and Water example. If two polarized elements like fire and water come into contact with each other, they neutralize each other. Similarly, these polar extreme idealogies might easily turn an arguement into a conflict and that is very bad for any country.
If you reached till here, my request would be to hear both the sides in an opposing argument and take a valid opinion of your own. Yes, you can have your opinions. You don’t have to align with someone random from social media. Leave me a clap for this article or comment your opinions if you want to add up on something. Thanks for reading :)
