A man-for the sake of this story, we’ll call him Jim-loved his family more than anything in the world. He wanted to take them on their dream vacation, but it would be expensive. It was important to him, though, so he took extra shifts every time they were available. He worked overtime every time it was offered. He even picked up a couple small side jobs. It was hard, and he was exhausted.
When he finally had the money saved and the trip booked, he told his family. His wife jumped up and down, then threw her arms around him and kissed him. He couldn’t wait to take her to the beach she’d talked about their whole marriage; to watch her leave, if only for a week, the stresses of being a working mom behind. His sons did their own version of a victory dance when Jim told them they’d be seeing their favorite team play a game during this trip.
Yes. Their reaction made all the extra work worth it, he thought.
About 6 hours into their first day of driving, Jim grew tired. He saw a hitch-hiker on the side of the road, and decided to pick him up and let him drive.
Right about now, you’re probably thinking (at least I hope you are): What?? No! That’s crazy!!
Yet I see this exact scenario EVERY DAY on social media. In Jim’s story, the priceless gift he put in a stranger’s hands was his family. On social media, it’s the mind; our ability to think for ourselves. The human mind is an incredible gift given to us by our creator, and yet we willingly and without question hand it over to strangers; maybe because it’s easier to let someone else think for us, maybe because we want to appear smart to our peers. Whatever the reason, we give someone else our mind.
Now, before you start shouting -‘Not me! I can think for myself!’-answer this: have you ever reposted without fact checking? If you have, then you’ve given your brain to someone else. You’ve decided that some unknown entity is smarter than you.
For example, I recently saw a post going around about the evils of Tilapia. The post claimed that Tilapia are “boneless, skinless, mutant fish that don’t occur anywhere in nature”. I immediately wondered how ANYONE could believe this…especially when the photo used in the post was clearly a fish with skin and bones. 30 seconds of research was more than enough to disprove every claim in this story.
Why anyone would create an “article” like this in the first place is beyond me, but it brought something that’s been bothering me for ages to front and center: people reposting stuff right and left with no research of their own. In the age of Google, Britannica Online, etc., there is ZERO reason to give your mind to anyone else. Literally 10 seconds of research will prove to you that no; airlines aren’t giving away tickets, Bill Gates isn’t giving away thousands of dollars, Apple isn’t giving away laptops.
What’s the harm, you ask? Not all “shares” have the consequence of only making you look silly. Some are designed to gain access to your friends list, or worse, your private information. Ever wonder what the purpose is for all those “what 80’s song are you?” type quizzes? If you haven’t, you should. Everything has a purpose, and sometimes, that purpose is evil.
This evil planted seeds that are now coming to fruition in the form of division across every spectrum of society. Every time a political ‘fact’ is shared without being checked, it’s spreading lies and hate. Every time a story about a company being anti-military gets re-posted, it creates division between the ones who patronize that store and the ones who don’t, even if the story is false. If we are going to come together, we have got to stop letting lies create an ‘us vs. them’ state.
Stories, believe it or not, can be falsehoods. Pictures can be photo-shopped. Videos can be altered. Do your own research. Think.
“Do not say that you’re afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient-that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible-that an error made on your own is better than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error. “ – “John Galt” in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand