The worrying fusion of information and entertainment

Misinformation is More Harmful than You Would Think

The effects of misinformation and how it’s caused are too vague of a subject for me to substantively deliberate on. In this specific article I’m going to talk about how modern day media influences cause information to become misinformation. Modern day mainstream media is too incentivized to portray information as a source of entertainment.

It’s not only the media, think about your everyday lives, how many times have your friends and family, or you yourself have exaggerated information just to make it seem more interesting? Information has always been misunderstood to be a source of other alternative things that its sole purpose, which in my opinion is, awareness.

People have been wrongly accused, wrongly appreciated, hurt and many other things because of misinformation. It’s not the idea that’s wrong, it’s human nature that’s at fault and our failing to fight it.

Misinformation comes from many sources, not just one.

© 2020 Cable News Network

Social Media as a Source of Information

Social media is a boon to most of us. All of us use it for different purposes, be it right or wrong. Let’s specifically talk about the lot that uses it as a source of information, I’m talking about us, the people who make an effort to be aware, to know, to understand, and to help.

Many people use social media as a means for quick facts, or just the basics about certain topics. However, things on social media get posted and reposted over and over, and the original information is often distorted, or completely different than the original post.

A good example is the childhood game “Telephone”. In the game, kids sit in a circle, and one person comes up with a phrase. That person whispers it to the person next to them, and the secret phrase travels around the circle until it reaches the last person, who has to say the phrase out loud to see if they got it correct. It sounds simple in theory, until you try it out. People warp and twist what others say, whether it be intentional or not, and the phrase is often completely different from the original. The game is often used to show how easy it is to miscommunicate. One person can misinterpret a piece of information, and end up accidentally spreading wrong or harmful information.

I’ve been on social media long enough to say with personal experience that the information put online is not always the truth or even a fact-based opinion. It’s funny how this article that I’m writing is eventually gonna be a post on the internet, very ironic. But for the sake of the argument let’s dismiss that, let us assume this is relevant and true. The concrete reason for why misinformation exists with prominence on social media is simple, social media platforms are public and open to all of humanity who have the availability and accessibility of it. So people can post whatever they want (to an extent of course), say whatever they want, and coming to our topic at hand again, Post wrong information i.e misinformation.

Wikipedia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Another good example are online wikis. The popular website, Wikipedia, is a wiki, meaning that it is an informative website with information provided by the people. A good idea, in theory, but oftentimes there is little to no fact-checking of the information posted on Wikipedia, making it an unreliable resource for research. After simply making an account, people can edit and add whatever information they want to any page on the website, and while some might research the topic and fact check everything before editing a page, others will not, making Wikipedia a mixture of right and wrong information.

The best part about social media, I believe is interaction. I constantly enjoy the feeling of interacting with other people on the internet. This interaction, in my opinion, is the purest form of information. By talking to people around the world you open your eyes to a perspective you’ve probably never looked at before. This sharing of ideas, problems and most importantly, information is what social media should be about, but you need to fact check, and make sure the information is true and relevant before spreading the news. That way, we can all be more educated on the issues our world faces.

© Commonwealth of Australia

What you can do

1. Don’t let human nature get the best of you, in simpler words, information is to be undisturbed and is to be said in a manner of respect for the essence of the information.

2. Point out pages and accounts publicly that spread false information.

3. Do not make your opinions on solely what the media or a social media post says. Do your own research and form opinions based on that

4. Try and spread awareness to your peers

5. Always verify your facts. The world is not a place to be gullible in, be aware of propaganda.

6. Report wrong information to appropriate authorities.