Hey, humans, we’re getting fat, bloated and cranky- -in our heads! Why? Because we’re consuming far too many fatty, sugary and bitter digital snacks through social media, newsfeeds, and the like.
Digital Diet: Eat informational veggies instead of inflammatory newsfeed sweets!
Permit me to point out the irony of your outburst. THIS BLOG is digital media.
Correct, Lily, but with a difference: I am all-knowing and speak only the truth!
That’s what all the extremists say.
Kind reader, if the ideas I’ve expressed above get you riled up in agreement or disagreement with me, you are proving my intended point. You are feeling the sugar high of digital media hyperbole, with a side order of hubristic righteousness.
Huh?
Toxically wound up and, per our digital friend AI, in “a state where a person combines excessive pride (hubris) with a belief in their own absolute moral correctness or justification, leading to an overestimation of their virtue and an inability to acknowledge their flaws or others’ perspectives.”
In English, being a crazed jerk.
Nice summation, Lily!
In my opinion the greatest offender in our digital diet is newsfeeds. Think about that word for a minute: we are being FED NEWS. The information about ourselves we make available online (and possibly within hearing of our ever-present iPhones) is being gathered and fed through algorithms that digest especially-for-us stories and points of view that reinforce our existing interests and biases. In short, we’re being gamed!
Manipulated in a way that is unfair or unscrupulous.
Precisely, Lily. Algorithms feed into every aspect of our lives, from retail temptations to inciting political violence. Sometimes they skew comically wrong, like when bra ads for the heavily endowed show up in my Facebook feed. Other times, posts from extremist political groups making claims that I know, using simple common sense, are either too good or too bad to be true activate my emotional triggers before logic kicks in.
Hence, the necessity of a digital diet. Before you ingest stuff that you know in your heart of hearts is bad for you, read the label! That is, check your digitally force-fed sources for accuracy. It is so easy now for anyone with a little bit of tech savvy to fabricate news items and fake video/audio footage; as P. T. Barnum did not actually say, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
I’ll say it again: If it looks too good or too bad to be true, it probably is. There are several places to check the veracity of what shows up in your newsfeeds. Politifact.com is particularly fun to use because of their rating system (True, False, Mostly True, Mostly False, Pants on Fire- -meaning egregiously false). This site seems to focus mostly on USA news; for a broader international view, Reuters Fact Check is very informative.
Maybe I don’t get this because I’m a kid, but what if people don’t trust the fact-checkers?
Excellent question, 9! Let’s see what AI has to say (NOTE: I do take AI’s responses with a grain of salt. . .):
“When people don’t believe fact-checking services, it contributes to a polluted information ecosystem and erodes trust in democratic institutions. This distrust allows misinformation to spread unchecked, influencing public opinion and political outcomes.”
I believe, in this case, there’s merit in AI’s answer. For one thing, it acknowledges there is pollution being fed into the “information ecosystem”- -fake news, faked footage, and exaggeration of things that are partly true. It doesn’t take a genius or a conspiracy theory enthusiast to understand that entities are paying to spread disinformation; that interested parties are trying to buy our attention and opinions to support their agendas.
So don’t be a digital media fathead. Check the veracity of what you read, especially if it stirs you to a state of overreaction. Even though P. T. Barnum did not say it, there’s truth to a sucker being born every minute.
Choose not to be that sucker.
