My Speech

Hello gingers! Here is my completed speech. Have fun.

I heard from Becky, who heard from Josh that Jake’s 2nd cousin heard from his Dad who saw on Facebook a link from twitter that World War 3 was starting.

I don’t think Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, ever thought that 140 characters could capture every single opinion and thought we have ever come up with. I don’t think he realized that every piece of a news story could somehow or another add up to become the epitome of journalism. And I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg sitting in his dorm room ever imagined that his website would become the sole connection between people and the rest of the world. I don’t think he realized that we would be impulsively addicted and crave that shade blue in our lives and that within it would display the current tragedies in our world, life changing innovation, and the newest episodes of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Mark Zuckerberg has somehow managed to tie the world together and let our keyboards be some of our only voices.

But how could those voices we are so proud of typing out be dangerous?

In the recent Aurora theatre shooting over this past summer, many of my peers made hasty posts about the shooting. They had to let all their friend’s know about how terrible they thought it was, and they also felt the need to let their friend’s know what was going on. It seems like a good idea at first glance. But the more and more I scrolled along the facebook posts the more I noticed a common trend. A common trend that at least some aspect of whatever post was being made was differing from what the credible journalists and news stories were actually saying.

In people’s haste to post about all the drama, they only looked at what other people on facebook, twitter, and other social platforms were saying. They didn’t bother to find true information or facts to back up what they were saying, which in turn, caused more confusion among the peers who saw those facebook posts.

I realized that the websites we associate so much of our lives with, is leaving a negative impact on the understanding of current events on my peers.

First, we need to realize what the Information Age is and how it affects our daily lives, then we need to look at how false information gets distributed, and finally we need to realize how we can change our understanding of current events and the media.

When you wake up in the morning, the information moves like lightning into your brain. We immediately know the time, what we are going to wear, what homework we forgot to do, and how many calories are in our breakfasts. As soon as we arrive out of our slumber that we use to escape all this information, we are again receiving, processing, and evaluating all the data that we need to know. This is vastly different from just 50 years ago. Back then, people didn’t need to have so much in their heads at one time. Times were simpler, and most information was obsolete until it affected your daily life.

We can go farther back to Greek times when philosophers like Aristotle, Democrates, and Euphrates used to ask questions about the world around them. They used to think for hours about what everything meant in the world, and they would take the time to decipher truth from fiction. They used to have the world of time at their disposal, and they used it pretty well.

But now, no one has the time to do anything. Everything is in the moment and must be done at this very second. We simply can’t take the time to question the data we are receiving. So our natural filtering system that greek philosopher’s had has weakened over time. And because of that we take all the information we inquire as fact. We just don’t have time for anything else. As Aristotle himself said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

If we’re not questioning what is true, and what isn’t, then we tend to speak our mind anyway. And those opinionated outbursts about things such as current events, world news, and Katy Perry’s outfit to the Grammy’s, make it on to our social networking sites. Then the people who read those take that as fact to. We have created a chain reaction of misinformation. All because we have lost some of our abilities to filter the material that is a necessity to us. No matter what that material entails. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

According to mandatory.com there have been 16 major celebrity death hoaxes on twitter just in the past year. Some celebrities like Paul McCartney, Madonna, Usher, Adele, and even Mr. Bean have supposedly died on twitter over various misinterpreted tweets and jokes by fans, or people who dislike these celebrities. Either way, that misinformation was shared and believed by everyone, just as fast or maybe even faster as a current events story such as things like the Aurora shooting. It’s difficult to actually care about what is true and fake, and the amount of twitter deaths that occur shows that.

Steve Jobs said this, “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” This happened immediately with social media. Things that aren’t true can travel across the world wide web as fast as the truth.

The truth is, is that anybody and everybody can see any information that is put on the internet and as I elaborated on earlier, some people in any circumstance will take that information as truth. We saw that happen with the Kony 2012 scandal earlier this year. A video was put up on YouTube full of false information on the Ugandan crisis and a warlord by the name of Joseph Kony. The video and the charity was basically an advocacy hoax to receive money. In fact according to post on Jezebel, a popular news blog, on March 7th, 2012, Invisible Children, the charity that created the Kony 2012 movement, only gave 32% of it’s profits to help those on the ground of Uganda.

Yet, the video and the charity received massive attention on facebook, twitter, and blogs alike. According to the same article, Invisible Children nearly tripled its profits, but nothing changed about the way they handled their money. 

This just goes to show you that the web is fast and it’s hard to tell what’s true or not. So most of the time we either can’t, or we don’t want to figure it out. That affects our understanding of current events and eventually the world. Misinformation travels just as fast as true information.

The real question is, how can my peer group change? My resolution is that we need to slow down. We need to stop from our fast-paced lives and just take a moment to look at the information that is being presented to us, and not just accept it, but entertain it and really think about it as Aristotle said.

We need to look at things with a more rational eye, but not try to rush it. We need to take the time to look at both sides, and look at what data is really affecting us and what it means.

We don’t need to become greek philosopher’s. We don’t need to spend hours on end thinking about every piece of intelligence we are given. But if we just take a little bit more out of our precious bank of time to think critically, we can achieve a full potential of understanding.

The world is huge, and amazing and incredible things happen to it everyday. We can’t expect to stay on complete tabs of what is true and what isn’t. But we can improve what we understand and get the crucial and important true information about our world if we just slow down, and think about our knowledge.

When Mark Zuckerberg created facebook he meant for people to share. He meant for people to be connected to one another. But next time you are scrolling through your news feed with that addictive blue background, don’t expect everything you see to be true. Think about the information, and think about what it means to you. Then when you share, you can feel confident your information sheds a positive light on your peers around you reading it as well.

Keep On Writing More Speeches,

Rachael The Ginger