"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation"
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
Today's technology allows us the instantaneous access to different types of knowledge bases around the world. With the click of a button, or a swipe of your finger, millions of articles, books, blogs, and stories are readily available.
News is published as it happens in the forms of posts on popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Occasionally updated as more detailed factual information and evidence becomes available. In a few simple seconds, we can read the first few sentences of something and share away onto our own walls, pages and feeds for everyone we know to see!
With so much legitimate information available and easily accessible, why is there so much misinformation and misrepresentation floating about?
Unfortunately, there are some people who have no desire to learn and grow as intellectual individuals. They don't want to be challenged, they don't want to genuinely think about what it is they are talking about. All of their knowledge is based on the words they've heard from others, not based on genuine research into a subject.
Technological advancements like "internet tracking" popular sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google can tailor your searches to only show you the stuff you already "know or believe in". The internet tracks the things you click on and search the most, and makes a record of that, then predominantly shows you those things the most.
In laymans terms, the internet helps further the bubble that some put around themselves by only interacting with people who walk, talk and think like them. It will rarely put something in front of you that goes beyond how you normally think or feel, therefore never challenging you with a difference of perspective or opinion.
You can unsubscribe, unfriend, unfollow and unlike anyone who thinks differently than you.
With the ability to cover your eyes and ears to seeing or hearing things you don't agree with or believe in, you close off your mind's ability to learn discover and grow.
We are capable of learning differently and thinking differently, but we need to open our minds up to those that are different from us.
Don't be live as the thoughts of others, challenge yourself to learn and grow.
