I think I grew up being taught to think different from the crowd.
In such an interconnected society that has become reliant on technology like social media to keep us connected, it has evidently become more difficult to maintain true individuality. There are so many crowds to become a part of and such diversity of thought between those crowds, how do you truly develop your own thought process and opinion?
Influencers
In the United States, over 79% of the population are active social media users. The principal luxury provided by both social and news media (assuming you have a favorite news channel) is that we are able to readily access and view the content that we want to see. The threat presented by these modes of media is that we are (for the most part) confined to seeing just that: what we want to see. Although technology does afford us the ability to pick and choose and theoretically build a diverse intake of media, we, as humans, are more inclined to view only what we want to view, thereby unintentionally tuning out the other noise.
Because of the way algorithms work on social media, we are constantly bombarded by media that is similar to those we like. If you like skiing (as I do), you probably get blasted with pictures of people taking cliffs, carving through powder, nailing trees, etc... It's no secret, we like watching what we want to watch. That's why social media is addictive - we are constantly drawn in to see more of what we want to see.
Because we are drawn into what we want to see time and time again, we get unwillingly indoctrinated into this feedback loop from hell that conflagrates confirmation bias. We see the same thing over and over and that becomes all we know and all we want to see. Often times, we don't even notice this because we are so focused on whether or not we are seeing the same things as our friends (which is really just one of the roots of the problem itself). Therefore, to ensure we are on the same page as our friends, we often share the same media we watch with our friends.
Information Dissemination & Polarization
However, therein lies another major issue: because of the ease at which we have the ability to share social, news, and internet media, it becomes convenient to share things without verification of truth or justification of reasoning. Therefore, it has become overly common for the rapid spread of misinformation or misrepresentation.
Imagine Alejandro does not like olives. He’s grown up in Greece and has tried several olives throughout his life, but Alejandro still hates olives. Even after going to the finest of all the olive farms in Greece, he still can’t stand the taste. Cristos, on the other hand, is an olive connoisseur and has been trying to convince Alejandro to try an olive for years, but he still won’t budge. After reaching his limit of frustration, Cristos shoves an olive down Alejandro’s throat. Forcing the olive down Alejandro’s throat is not going to make him like olives – it’s going to make you hate olives even more because he associates olives with the harrowing experience of having an olive crammed down his throat.
The converse, however, is also true. If Alejandro liked olives and Cristos offered an olive, Alejandro would be all over it. The same goes for news.
The above olive digression is essentially just another way of explaining confirmation bias. Essentially, if we already think one way and that is challenged, we are less likely to be open to the new way. The converse is also perfectly true. If we already think one way, and someone reiterates that way of thinking, then we become deeper rooted in that way of thinking.
Furthermore, because of the divisiveness of news media in this day and age, its highly likely that even if you share the media with someone of the opposing view, it only invigorates their disapproval of the view which you are trying to put forward.
Think about something that you've relayed to a friend or family member in the past week that came from either social media or the news. Can you justify or reason through what was said? Did you formulate your own opinion or simply reiterate what someone else said?
Groupthink
When you scroll past a meaningless post on your Instagram feed and take it for granted, it is inevitable that the post will plant a minor seed. So, whether you follow influencers or friends or celebrities, we are constantly building our own thought processes and images based on the influence of others.
When we are constantly surrounded either by people we personally know or by people (like celebrities) who we don't know and want to emulate, we naturally take on their qualities, trying to be more like them. That's the natural sequence of what happens when we admire or appreciate someone - we want to be more like them.
In a similar fashion, this same mechanism occurs with our thought processes and individuality. By constantly seeing people we want to emulate, we natural lose some of what makes ourselves unique, thereby sacrificing our own true qualities and thought processes in order to replicate and fit in with others.
The major issue presented with such a mechanism is that this removal of individuality, whether it be on a surface level or deeper, is that it effectively molds our modes of thinking to be like the majority, or rather conforms our thinking into common forms, also known as groupthink. This same issue happens with news, when we are constantly influenced by what we want to hear, that belief that the news pushes is what we come to embody, whether or not we truly believe it or can actually justify the belief.
Groupthink is most frequently referred to in a business setting - something that presents a major threat to the success of any business. It is usually the result of two types of teams: A) a team that has worked together for a long time and has begun to think in the same manner or B) a team in which few people are actually doing the thinking while the others follow mindlessly. Either way, the implications are poisonous. However, if groupthink pertains to our society on a national scale, which is becoming more and more evident, this presents not only an issue to our productivity as a country, but to our independence as individuals.
Whether you're conservative, liberal, unitarian, black, white, upside-down or inside out, I think we can all agree that we deserve the right to independence. We deserve the freedom of press, we deserve the freedom of speech, but most sacred to each and every one of us is truly our freedom of thought. So, if we are becoming more and more influenced by outsiders and are becoming less inclined to truly formulate our own individual opinions, are we really retaining our freedom of thought?
Thinking Different
Yes, you can theoretically get out of your comfort zone and actively seek diversity in the accounts and feeds you follow - I.e. following both conservative and liberal media (because there is no such thing in this day and age as unbiased). The issue is that our society has become so deeply rooted in their respective sides that those who are actually willing to hear out both sides are few and far between.
So how do we solve for this lack of diversity? One solution is through education, but then the question becomes how to re-educate those who are no longer in the schooling system? Are parents willing to re-educate themselves or even teach their children to be more open to other ways of thinking?
To be continued…
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