Social Bubbles

I'm noticing that rather than actually seeing the source of many issues, on Facebook I seem to instead see people's reactions to it.

For example, there's something going around with people raving about celebrity women who have lost weight during quarantine, and how they're "suddenly beautiful." All I'm seeing is the backlash of people saying they were beautiful before and losing weight didn't change that. 

I have no idea where this originated. If I cared I would Google it, but I have enough drama without TMZ toxicity in my life. People's reactions in my social bubble are on point though, at least.

I also never actually saw anyone actively blaming China for the plague. Not that I'm complaining - I'd have ripped them a new one myself if I did. I guess I'm proud nobody in my social bubble is that much of an asshole, so I never had to.

I just find it interesting that, unless I Google them, I never seem to see the sources on these things. Only the outrage itself, which I often agree with, reinforcing my confirmation bias on issues I've never even seen directly.  

I rarely have my opinions indirectly challenged by seeing someone else's posts, so I have to seek out ways to debate issues I believe myself to feel too strongly about. But I often have to do that outside my social bubble or I'd risk hurting my friends. If I didn't directly ask someone to come up with a really good counterargument to my beliefs, I would not likely ever get or otherwise see one. 

I don't always want one though - I'm not always in the mood to expand my mind. Sometimes I just want to relax like everyone else. But I do like to know when I am wrong. It can be difficult to fight the gut reaction of anger when a firmly held belief is being questioned, but I think it's important to ask ourselves why we react with anger rather than curiosity.

Seeing how this works in this context, it's easy for me to imagine how conservatives have their confirmation bias reinforced, never seeing the sources directly before seeing hundreds of media and friends' opinions. This doesn't make them right, but it also doesn't necessarily make liberals right either. We are products of a system that only shows us what we want to see, just like everyone else.

What we choose to do with this information is what tells us whether we're truly part of the problem that polarizes our society. Will we critically think about our media exposure and search for sources to develop our own opinions? Or will we continue to allow others' reactions to shape our opinions for us?

This has been thought experiments with Josie. My statements are not fact, they are merely observations and opinions formed within the bias of my mind, as usual. ;)