Psych 101 and the Valley of Open-Mindedness

Anyone who knows anything about politics, knows that it is anything but black and white. Politics is the business of meeting in the middle to get stuff done (or not, if you’re Republicans and Obama is President) which exists somewhere in a mostly grey area. Still, everywhere I turn, all I see is shouting. It’s like that one scene in Anchorman — LOUD NOISES! It feels like the decline in critical thinking is killing democracy.

Thanks to social media, people are already reading less and less. Attention spans aren’t easily maintained. Reading online means you have a steady stream of distractions. Skimming does not equate reading. Agreeing with the headline does not equate reading. Posting something for likes does not equate reading.

I was a double psych major in college and while i’m no expert on matters of the brain, i’m inclined to say the internet has changed the way people think. Fortunately, there are professionals studying this and a number of them are saying it’s true:

“As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children’s Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.”

For those unfamiliar, here are a few psychology terms as explained through the lens of the 2016 election:

Critical thinking is defined as the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. [e.g. I am a human being, do I think Donald Trump, a man with no government experience, no history of public service, who tweets more than he receives security briefings and who frequently attacks people he perceives as weaker than himself, is qualified to be president?]

Hive mind is defined as a notional entity consisting of a large number of people who share their knowledge or opinions with one another, regarded as producing either uncritical conformity or collective intelligence. [e.g. Bernie Sanders is infallible and God, end of story; all private/secret groups on FB]

All-or-nothing thinking is one of many negative thought processes, known as cognitive distortions, which occurs when a person splits their views into extremes. [e.g. #BernieOrBust; #NeverHillary; #DemExit.]

Cognitive distortions are simply ways that our mind convinces us of something that isn’t really true. [e.g. Donald Trump seems like a good guy, he’s got kids! I like his hat! He’ll bring back our jobs, he’ll lock her up! You’ll see… Conversely, HILLARY IS SATAN AND SHE WILL STEAL YOUR CHILDREN IF WE ELECT HER!]

Cognitive dissonance is defined as the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change. [e.g. Democrats got what they deserved with Trump because Hillary deserved to lose, anyway I’m also a Democrat and Bernie would have won (…I voted for Jill Stein btw).]

Really makes you think. (I hope?)

One of my favorite reads of the election was from Matt Masur, “Bernie Sanders Could Replace President Trump With Little-Known Loophole.” You’re free to read it if you want but you could just copy and paste the title into a social network of your choice to see how many people shared it without reading.

You could also paste this satire job from yours truly “Is There A Loophole That Could Actually Keep Obama In The White House?” into your browser to see how many people had a field day with it. I fell down a rabbit hole where people were ARGUING life and death that this was real and that Democrats were trying to steal the Presidency from Trump, completely ignoring whenever someone pointed out a contrary position, that it was satire/comedy:

What happens when we all believe we are right, that our sole opinions are the just ones? What happens when EVERYONE thinks that way? I would argue that democracy dies because when no one can reason, no one can meet in the middle. There is nothing simple about political narratives in this day and age yet every argument I see or participate in can somehow be distilled down into two neat categories. The world is much more complex.

Yet here we are. We live in an age where digital publishers and news sites are all competing for the same clicks to sustain advertising budgets. Content is syndicated by other sites and re-shared with different headlines (see what they did there?). Headlines themselves are becoming more and more sensational, trust me, I worked for a digital publisher so I’m no stranger to the game. But at what cost? This is unsustainable.

In my hunt to learn more about group mind and the internet, I stumbled across “The Social Media Bubble” from Uptin Saiidi:

“Before the internet and iPhones, and before Facebook used more sophisticated algorithms, political discourse took place in coffee shops and in local town papers, citizens could simply skip over an op-ed headline they didn’t want to read — but at least they knew it existed.”

But have we reached the point of no return? How do you reverse engineer an echo chamber? How do you get people sharing political discourse in places like coffee shops (or anywhere not online)? There isn’t an app for that yet, but maybe there should be: Disconnected™. I suspect part of the legwork has to be done by the platforms and engineers themselves, but I’m sure we can help ourselves in the interim.

I’m currently reading “Politics: Between the Extremes” by Nick Clegg. I’m not a registered Liberal Democrat and I don’t necessarily care for Clegg or his style of politics but so far it’s a fascinating read. I’m trying to be open to ideas and learn from others. I’m trying to meet in the middle.

I just added “The Filter Bubble” by Eli Pariser to my reading list. If reading isn’t your speed, check out his Ted Talk instead.