Anyone who’s taken an elementary course in philosophy knows that 17th Century French philosopher René Descartes once said, “I think, therefore I am.” Apparently there are 21st Century illiterates who have come up with a new perspective on our relationship with reality: “I said it, therefore it’s true.” Welcome to the misinformed world of social media, where reality is anything you wish it to be.
How can you argue with thinking like that? Well, you can’t. Don’t even try. Ignorance creates an impenetrable shield that protects social media bloggers and posters from the scrutiny of others. And because it’s so easy to do, this mindless activity has created a smug gaggle of online ninnies who have convinced themselves that they know what they’re talking about.
Because social media platforms are easy to use, anyone can babble about anything on any topic. Actual knowledge of the subject isn’t required. Better still, you don’t even have to understand what anyone else has posted. It only matters that they think like you do, and if they don’t, they’re just wrong. And by the way, Facebook makes it even simpler than that. If you lack adequate communication skills to express yourself coherently, just press the “like” button. And it gets better than that. You get your choice of graphic “emojis” which allow you to express how you feel or think when words fail you. Could anything be more easy?
Social media may be responsible for contributing to an epidemic of illiteracy and ignorance in this country that our education system has yet to recognize. But then again, maybe they have. And perhaps there are those who are well aware that running a country full of drooling social media idiots might make their jobs a lot easier; a population of citizens who are easy to deceive and easy to manipulate. I suspect that there are bureaucrats out there who have considered the possibilities of mastering this phenomenon.
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