I will never be the same person again

[FredyFired]

I only now got to read this article and I gotta say that I really enjoyed it, great read. I'm always glad when I see people tackle these modern world problems we are currently facing.

I was so self-assured that I am mentally strong enough to use my critical and rational thinking to come to conclusions of my own. One day I caught myself quoting something I saw on Twitter without even understanding it deeply. Google search used to be the best tool we have, but now I am afraid whether we have become too lazy to even search and verify the information we see on social media and are starting to completely trust what we see, subconsciously. Even if your friends share something with you, you should verify it with multiple sources before coming to any conclusions.

This part is something that really caught my eye, since I also made this mistake in the past and I still have lots of friends that keep making it to this day. It's interesting how in spite of living in the age of information, it is easier than ever to be misinformed or ignorant when it comes to serious matters and I think the current global situation even showcased this exact issue.

Now I feel tempted to ignore all of the political, religious and social matters discussed on social media. After all, why waste my time on that and sever my connections when I can just mind myself doing more productive things? And yet, I feel that by doing this I become a social nihilist just like most people have become, without caring about the society that I live in. What is your advice on this?

The way I handle this is that I have a select few friends with whom I can speak my mind quite freely and go more in-depth into all sorts of topics, some of which might be controversial like the ones you mentioned and I also like to approach different issues with them and have debates in which one of us usually takes the role of the Devil's advocate. When it comes to social media (stuff like Facebook or Youtube) I very rarely express my opinions on there because I feel like no one truly pays attention there enough. People would rather instigate fights and go at each other's necks, barely any civil arguments can be had and no conclusions are ever reached. When it comes to some niche communities and websites, I find it to usually be much easier to have a civilized and entertaining discussion with someone else about a specific topic, so I guess this would be my advice pretty much regarding this whole situation.