Most people will encounter a breadth of opinions and viewpoints about almost every issue. You think one thing, and it turns out that many of the people you know think differently.
Over time, I think that this exposure to alternative points of view causes you to question the certainty you have about your own thoughts. You may still believe things, but you’re inclined to realise that other people differ from you, and that that’s okay.
It’s not perfect and it certainly does not work all the time, or for everyone, or for every issue. People will disagree, but you get my point: exposure to other ideas leads to some level of tolerance.
This happens best in the real world, because we can see people’s sincerity, their passion, hear their arguments played out in real time. We can ask them about themselves, why they hold the views that they do.
Online, we get sound bites, we have no idea who we’re talking to, what they do, what their expertise is, or if they have an agenda.
We now live in the era of social media, and the algorithmic news / social feed. It’s designed to capture your attention and to keep you there as long as possible, so that you consume more content, and therefore consume more of the platform’s ads, which are the reason they exist.
It turns out that rage is a pretty good way of keeping you engaged, and the content that causes rage is not going to help you towards tolerance, but cause you to become more entrenched in your position, and more hostile to other points of view.
So we’re now in position where for a decade or more, many (most?) of us have allowed our attention to be gamed, our tolerance to be diminished. All the while, we think that we’re right, and anyone who differs from our opinion must be some kind of moron, because everyone online thinks just like I do. Look, see. See what all the people I know are saying online.
It’s time to turn off the social media, or turn towards social media which has no algorithm to game your attention.
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