Psych Blog #4

Last week I had posted an article on Facebook in my “Psychology of Social Media” group page that talked about how social media and news could warp people’s memories. There was a specific focus on false information that was spread through social media among friends. I will repeat a portion of my post to lay a framework for further elaboration on the article: “The article detailed a phenomenon known as memory convergence. In short, this is the process by which a group of people come to agree on what happened. Social media allows for people to share ideas that are often reinforced by people with a similar viewpoint. The danger in this is that false information can quickly become circulated in these groups at large and distort the memories that people have of these events. This idea ties into the phenomenon of group think, which can be dangerous in regards to false information being accepted and stored into memories as vetted facts.”

People’s thought processes and memories of events can be manipulated when inaccurate information is supported by a large mass of people. This is reminiscent of Asch’s famous conformity experiments conducted in the 1950s. The tests showed that people will often conform to the majority’s consensus, even if they, individually, may think it’s wrong. The same principle still applies to users on social media today regarding shared information and news. What complicates matters even worse is when users have immersed themselves in only like-minded individuals (via control of the Friend’s list on Facebook). This behavior often leads to people fading out of the individual mindset and into the large body of group-consensus and shared ideas.

I frequently see people on social media post something involving a strongly held idea or opinion on a controversial subject that follows with the phrase “this should clear out my friends list.” How detrimental is it to isolate ourselves from differing viewpoints so that we can comfortably put on the blinders to allow for tunnel vision into our own ideas? The construction of an echo-chamber of ideas that posts like these catalyze is destructive to the framework of sound reasoning and critical thinking. Surrounding oneself with staunch supporters doesn’t allow you to hear or consider the voice of opposing ideas. I believe that this is unhealthy and, in the absence of opposition, can lead to the acceptance of more radical ideas.

As an addendum:


In class this week we discussed some of the differences between traditional media (newspapers, TV reporting agencies, Radio, etc...) and social media. Traditional media is generally a one-way communication system whereby users listen to the information, but have no way of responding. Social media, however, is a two-way communication system that allows the audience to reply and interact with the newscaster. Also, traditional media often takes longer to deliver information to the public due to its more stringent publishing and editing process. Social media is free from these restraints which allows it to deliver news to its audience nearly immediately. But what price do we pay for this immediacy? Accuracy. Accuracy is often forfeited in the race to be first. It takes time to thoroughly review and vet information for factual value, a process that social media doesn’t have time for. Are we willing to accept this sacrifice to quench our demand for speed of delivery?

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