Attention, Trust, and the Internet

Remember that most web pages, including the legitimate ones, are trying to get your attention. But what gets your attention?

Being human, most people notice web pages that are offensive, appealing, or unusual.  

Advertising relies on catching your eye.  Flashing ads are an eye catcher, literally.  Both men and women are more likely to look at a picture that includes a beautiful woman.  Almost everyone likes cute animal pictures.  Certain buzz words, both pro and con, catch your eye. Advertising counts it as a victory if they ‘made you look’.

Note: none of these ideas, about attention, and eye catching, are about: how true, how valuable, how moral, how wonderful the information is.  They are mostly about getting your attention.

Also, in social media, posts are not immediately evaluated by how true, how valuable, how moral, how beautiful the ideas are.  Less fact checking is done for social media than is done for commercials.

Once we have an idea that has caught our attention, the next question is about trust.  We love to trust people that we know.  Celebrity endorsements play on that.  Social media reports people you know who have liked a page.  Advertisements use people with a trustworthy looking face.  But here is an important point:  Just because someone you trust has recommended a page, does not mean the page is accurate. Your friend could be mistaken.  The endorsement could have been faked.  The person could look trustworthy, but just be a hired actor.  Celebrities are not experts in the field, although people continue to trust them.

It is very natural to uncritically accept what a person you love and trust says.  In situations where they are speaking from their own experience, that is natural.  In situations where they are indeed an expert, that is appropriate.  But, if people are getting information from the internet, it is not being verified by their personal experience, so your trust for what is essentially unverified reports being passed along, should not be as great as your trust for information that is a direct product of their personal experience, or expertise.

So, if it has your attention, you should STILL evaluate it for authority, currency, accuracy, objectivity, fairness, bias confirmation, comparison, links, URL, suffix, and country.

I have dearly loved relatives on both sides of numerous political and social divides.  Once I posted a New York Times fact checking of a Trump-Biden debate.  We will talk about tribalism later.  Relatives on either side fiercely disputed the article. Ironically, none of the relatives in question had watched the debate, so they were disputing it, and demanding that I reject it, based on, essentially, no information.  I did my own fact checking, and found the article far more reliable than most news reports, but depending on who I listened to, I would believe the report was unfairly biased against their side.

Internet and Social Media

We have already discussed how to look at the reliability of Internet information.  Anyone who has studied advertising knows techniques for catching attention.  

Although many do not, it is worth reflecting on these points, as you find things on the Internet.  What information is important? What is worth our time on social media? What is just a distraction? Is this information accurate?  Is there bias confirmation possible here?  

People have already done, and continue to do, research on the interaction of technology and communication. Email has a positive impact on work effectiveness, but also causes stress, anxiety, and disorder.
https://graduateway.com/impact-of-email-in-communication/

In the early days of the Internet, it was found out that, psychologically, when you are typing at a computer, it does not feel as much like human interaction as an in-person conversation.  However, when you receive a message, especially a critical one, it DOES bother you.  So, with people not screening their words (going out) as much as if they were in person, but people were more offended at messages (coming in), there rapidly developed what became called a ‘flame war’.  Each person would become progressively more offended, and the negative messages would escalate rapidly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming_(Internet)

It is still true that the emotional impact of in person, telephone, email, and text messages are different.  For example, many believe it is totally inappropriate to break a romantic relationship by text.
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/absolutely-disrespectful-break-text-sdywr/

Disagreements and Social Media

“Since 1994, the number of Americans who see the opposing political party as a threat to “the nation’s well-being” has doubled. This deepening polarization has predictable results: government shutdowns, violent protests, and scathing attacks on elected officials.”

Confirmation bias, where we tend to listen to groups which share the views we already have, is a factor.

“When the researchers looked at tweets from the Presidential, Senate, and House of Representatives candidates in the 2016 U.S. election, they found that tweets with more emotive and moral words were more likely to be retweeted.”

And, if the opposing side is listening, there is likely negative reaction to the emotive words as used by someone they disagree with.

The article suggests Actively Open-Minded Thinking (AOT). “AOT is a cognitive style that allows people to be more thoughtful, flexible, and open-minded, even when information contradicts a strongly held prior view. For example, both conservatives and liberals who score higher in AOT are less likely to display strong polarization on hot-button issues, such as climate change. Similarly, a new study earlier this year found that high-AOT Twitter users were better at creating and responding to social media content in a thoughtful and reflective manner.”

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/is_social_media_driving_political_polarization
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285693848_Actively_open-minded_thinking

In a study published in Scientific American, putting people into “echo chambers” (like breakout rooms in ZOOM) did NOT promote polarization.  All groups independently moved towards opinions closer to the center of the political spectrum.  However, connections in their groups were ‘egalitarian;’ every person had the same number of connections as every other.

But in Centralized Networks, which many social media sites are, there are ‘influencers’; whose thoughts reach out to disproportionally many members.  (Think ‘followers’ on social media; a few people have many followers.  Trump is an example.) “The problem of partisan bias is exacerbated on social media because online networks are often organized around a few key influencers. This feature of social media is one of the main reasons why misinformation and fake news has become so pervasive. In centralized networks, biased influencers have a disproportionate impact on their community—enabling small rumors and suppositions to become amplified into widespread misconceptions and false beliefs.” [There research suggests] “The more [we have] equity in people’s social networks, the less biased and more informed groups will become—even when those groups start off with highly partisan opinions.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-social-media-makes-us-more-polarized-and-how-to-fix-it/

Another article suggests: social media shapes polarization through the following social, cognitive, and technological processes: partisan selection, message content, and platform design and algorithms.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34429255/

Politicians and Political Discourse

Politics is important.  And mud slinging and other tactics are probably older than democratic elections.  But the United States has some truly toxic political discourse.  (Many examples can be found in “The Dispatch Weekly”.)  Here are some ideas that are not helpful in trying to seek a consensus on what is best for the whole country, or the whole world.

When someone criticizes a politician for something that is ‘wrong’, it does not help to say ‘well, the other side does it too’, or ‘the other side did it first.’  If it is wrong, it is wrong on both sides of the political fence.  It is not an appropriate defense of your actions, or the actions of someone you support, to say, “someone else is not perfect, therefore I can be imperfect and no one dare criticize me.”  Jesus did NOT say “Don’t worry about yourself, until everyone around you is perfect.” He said: “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. [Matthew,7:4-5; New King James version]  

Do not start with the assumption that you and your side are noble of motive, but they and their side are out to ‘Destroy the World.’ Almost everyone believes that, however imperfect they may be, they themselves are good people.  There are many goals that conservatives have that they believe are, and actually are, for the good of the country.  There are many goals that liberals have that they believe are, and actually are, for the good of the country.  Not even the Nazis believed that they were being deliberately evil.  There is no way to discuss what is best for the country or the world if you cannot understand that the person on the other side wants what is best, too; they just have a different perspective.  In a teaching job, I once had a good friend, with whom I often had disagreements.  But each of us knew the other wanted what was best for the students.  So rather than demonizing each other, we were able to discuss why we each thought the way we did, and at least many times, come up with an approach we both agreed was good for students.

Watch out for tribalism.  I think of tribalism, simplified, as, whatever is done by my side is good; whatever is done by the other side is bad.  A side effect of this is, the belief that the end justifies the means (IF it is YOUR SIDE that is trying to achieve its ends.)  Sorry, if the end doesn’t justify the means for your opponents, it is hypocrisy at best to say it is OK for your side.

Consider when it is OK to compel action.  Both sides are guilty of saying, when their candidate is President, yes, our President can do anything by executive order, and need not bother Congress to make laws.  But, then you implicitly allow the other side to do things by executive order when THEY hold the Presidency.  

At one time, the President of the United States, and a Speaker of the House from the opposing party, were able to be friends.  (For example, Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil.)  If we cannot focus on a greater thing, like being from the same country, the polarization gets worse, not better.

Are we trying to work together, or not? “But what makes a lot of candidates unattractive is that they seem to thrive off our twisted and extreme discourse.” [Rachel Larimore, The Dispatch Weekly, Oct 29, 2022] Despite all of the evidence that the election when Biden defeated Trump was, indeed, properly certified, people are STILL deliberately trying to push people to extremes.  Yes, there is evidence that Trump was planning out how to claim the election was rigged even before the election.  But Biden did not help by claiming that “MAGA Republicans” threaten democracy.  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-maga-republicans-threaten-democracy-dems-hammer-trump-emphasize-social-issues-before-midterms

A long time ago, two Senators in Wisconsin brought some representative citizens together in the State Capitol, and gave them access to the Federal Government Archives there.  These citizens were able to recommend a balanced budget for the Federal government, in a relatively short time.  Some residents of the Madison area at the time believed that this was because: None of these citizens were up for election, or worried about re-election; none of them had debts to people who helped them get elected; none of them were worried about which party got ‘credit’ for coming up with a balanced budget.  Wisconsin still has strong support for a balanced Federal budget.
[Ellen Wallen, personal communication]

Across the country we see politicians more concerned about appealing to the party base, to get nominated, than about appealing to the whole constituency.  And we are seeing an increasing number of districts where one party is so dominant, that the other party has virtually no chance to get a candidate elected.  We are seeing fewer who are willing to reach across party lines to forge a consensus, or seek a compromise.  And when someone votes against their party, they are at best attacked for disloyalty, instead of being commended for considering more than just party loyalty.

	

Journalism

Biases and false dichotomies can reduce multi-faceted issues to simplistic representations of reality that reinforce social, political, economic, and religious divides, leading to sensationalist news coverage.
This concept and others were explored by two experienced journalists in a podcast: titled “In Good Faith: Truth and Standards in Media.”

“What is the role of journalists in promoting understanding and dialogue, especially in a media environment that is often driven by sensationalism?” 
https://youtu.be/QrwYJ149LOI  

 “Writers have to be free from prejudice, fair-minded, and be able to look at issues with a sense of justice,” said Carmel Kalani.
Ms. Kalani stated: “Newspapers, social media, and other forms of media are like ‘the mirror of the world.’ They are ‘endowed with hearing, sight, and speech.’”

One of the implications of this, she said, is that articles and other forms of expression by journalists have the potential to inspire in all of us a sense of oneness with our fellow human beings.
“When journalists tell a story, they shape the world we live in, they shape what we see as possible,” said Ms. Kalani, explaining that the media can unlock the “immense capability of people to bring about unity and peace.”

Despite this tremendous potential, certain practices place pressure on journalists to produce reports that are sensationalist, such as surprising people in distress for an interview.

“Door knock” journalism typically does not yield any new facts. Instead, it caters to the audience’s appetite for the dramatic and can distract attention from the real issues.

Mr. McManus added that many journalists are uncomfortable with practices in their field that lead to sensationalist news coverage and stressed the importance of empathy and preservation of human dignity when reporting. “At the heart of all these stories are human beings with feelings. … They’ve all got family. So I always try to remember that, [which] moderates my thinking and actions.”

Remona Aly, a reporter for The Guardian, stated: “You have this sense of responsibility to whoever you're interviewing. … I really try hard to maintain that protection. I say [to the interviewee] ‘you can look over the article afterwards so that you're comfortable with it.’”

Discussions also looked at how biases and false dichotomies can reduce multi-faceted issues to simplistic representations of reality that reinforce social, political, economic, and religious divides, leading to sensationalist news coverage.

Mr. McManus, speaking about the responsibility of journalists to maintain objectivity, stated: “Things are not black and white. You can hold two different points of view in your mind which are both correct, because we know that human life is infinitely varied and complex.”
Reflecting on this discussion, Nancy Warren, explains that this podcast series is part of ongoing efforts to contribute to the discourse on the constructive role of media in society.

“People begin their journalistic career with very high ideals, but they eventually find it difficult to write in a way that is in line with their principles,” she says.

Summary

There is no need for you to uncritically accept ideas presented in this chapter.  In fact, please do check this information for reliability.  And there is no need for you to agree with any perspective presented here.

If you are looking for WHY there is so much polarization in social media, politics, and personal relationships, it is worth considering the role that is played by mentioned factors.

Internet Information is not necessarily reliable.
Many concepts are framed to catch your attention, without much regard to accuracy.
Social Media tends to select things their algorithm thinks you will like; which means it is biasing the information it presents to you.
Depending on how you search the Internet, the results may be subject to confirmation bias; that is, you are more likely to see things which support what you are already thinking.
Biased reports, and having some people whose influence is disproportionate, can contribute to polarization. 
Many politicians are more interested in getting supporters than in getting at the truth.  Many voters are relatively easily influenced by politicians manipulating emotional and moral feelings, linking opponents to negative ideas.
Even the best journalistic sources know that sensationalism  brings more readership, and thus usually more money.

Please consider these ideas as you evaluate what information to look at, and what information to believe, from whatever sources.