With the Indian elections gobbling most of our social media news feed, this election season, one can see a deluge of fake information, viciously circulated across social media platforms.
India is headed for a future wherein a billion new users are going to hop on to the internet ecosystem – aided by cheaper high-end handsets and mobile data available at prices lower than pulses and fruits in India.
A big chunk of this population belongs to a section that hasn’t used a desktop, and have not had the opportunity to have formal education about the internet and digital ecosystem. More importantly, this is a section that has not learnt or ever been allowed to QUESTION.
At a recent group discussion on the problems of fake news in India, my alma mater’s Vice Dean, Ms Kanchan Kaur, raised an important issue about how Indians have never been allowed to question or engage in quality critical thinking sessions in the past or come to think of it, even now.
This really made me think along the lines of how such an important societal and cultural aspect resulted in political power houses and people with vested agendas to sway decision making of the common man as per their convenience.
Why Not Question?
Our families and schools have never enabled us to question things – we were often told by parents, especially the generation that is today in its 50s and 60s, that whatever an older person in the family or your teacher or superior at workplace says, is the final truth. Counter questioning or raising a debate or even giving another perspective has always been considered bad manners or arrogance.
Growing up, I had also witnessed elders seeking advice from this one person who they considered the head of the family, and would blindly follow the path or information given by them – without going into any kind of research about the situation. Therefore, the same pattern of decision making is being followed now and is expected from our generation. This is no longer confined only to the physical world, but is also happening via social media platforms.
During the Balakot attack, I happened to visit Kolkata and was surprised to hear people quote messages forwarded sent via Whatsapp groups – why? Well, someone who they think knows it all has sent them the message. Every other person would cite social media forwards when it came to good diets – resulting in some claiming eggs to be healthy and others claiming them to be detrimental to health!
Even at schools, back in the early 2000s (when I was in school that is), a student asking questions or suggesting something very different from what was being taught in class was disliked by his/her peers. Why? Is she trying to show she knows it all?
Our families as well, have, over the years, not allowed kids or their parents to question the beliefs or methodologies of the previous generation.
Superiors at work would claim they know it all, because they have been doing the same thing for decades – this would leave a new entrant with no other choice but to follow the same path as his predecessors.
There Is A Ray Of Hope
While the epidemic has hit us, wherein we believe everything that reaches us via the huge plethora of social media platforms, one can still hope that the tech-savvy, wisely educated and progressively positive adults would be able to bring about a CHANGE.
A generation of people between 15- 35 are educating the generation above them on issues like fake information, biases that are behind certain news institutions and sanitising their Whatsapp channels. Some even go to the extent to warn others about being on certain social media platforms which could affect mental peace and disturb sanity.
There are a few parents and geriatric folks who have opened their minds to new things around them. They are getting to a point where they are raising their children differently, allowing them to speak their minds, listening to their side of the story, discussing the so-called taboo issues at home – which is the best way forward.
Portals like Alt News, BoomLive, SM Hoax Slayer and a couple more have become predominant go-to destinations for many, to fact-checking information that goes viral, which is a step towards the right direction.
But the brutality of the issue can only be controlled if we inculcate the habit of reasoning, critical thinking and have a rational debate rather than arguments at schools, workplaces and family circles. The blind-folded approach to anything that is communicated via anybody needs to be abandoned for good and the above habits need to be inculcated in our ecosystem.
(The author has worked with Alt News at her previous organization)