January 8, 2023, Karen Yvonne Hamilton
I find that I vacillate between reliable messages, ones that come from reputable sources, and the “other” messages, ones that come from memes and video clips that we see all over our social media. I was scrolling through Facebook this morning, and I started to wonder why I was pausing to read all the memes touting self-care, psychological challenges, philosophical quotes, etc. My academic brain was telling me to verify the source; the rest of me was nodding my head at the ‘wisdom’ and scrolling on. One such post was an excerpt from an interview with Ursula K. LeGuin, author. I was doing the nodding my head thing and preparing to scroll on when I thought of this class and decided to let my academic brain do its thing. I followed up. I read the whole interview, which gave me context and clarity. Le Guin says, “I live now when we fuss if our computer can’t bring us everything we want instantly. We deny time. I find this virtual existence weird, and as a way of life, absurd. This could be because I am eighty-four years old. It could also be because it is weird, an absurd way to live,” (Davis, Heather, 2014). If I had not followed up, I would have missed her whole message, which had to do with what she thinks of time and how time works in her novels. And I would not have thought.
If society is now senders, receivers, and creators, how can each individual delineate which message they are receiving is reliable and valid? We are inundated with more and more personal opinion, and much of it is not backed up with reliable sources. Time seems to be the most important factor in sending messages. As the sender, you must keep it short and catch the receiver’s attention immediately. Receivers are also constricted by the new way they deal with time, which means they want it fast so they can scroll on to the next message. Two researchers suggest that “…the key is recognizing these changes and creating content and ways to connect to it that match the changes in customer values.” (Aganbi & Emokiniovo, 2021). I don’t understand how this ‘matching’ can work when the new ‘customer values’ seem to be “I don’t care if it’s true; just give it to me fast.” So, it is left to the individual to recognize this change in behavior and create a way for them, individually, to organize the messages they receive and create a change in their own behavior that works for them.
As teachers, this becomes a huge challenge, to create this ethic in our students, to encourage them to recognize their own current behaviors when encountering this mass of messages and change how they respond to those messages. In other words, teach them to think critically, which has always been one of our top goals in education anyway.
While I believe there are too many media channels, I think the avalanche of messages is the greatest threat to information sharing. We might spend a large amount of time on Facebook, but that one channel barrages us with messages that might send us off to other channels, or we might (probably do) take it at face value, or worse, we might react to or act on without stopping to weigh the validity of the message. We speed read through the overwhelming amount of messages and often miss the ones that have actual validity in favor of the ones that simply line up with our own beliefs, values, and opinions. In short, the amount of messages is so great that we don’t stop to think.
References
Aganbi, & Emokiniovo, V. (2021). Of media literacy and the changing receiver in the digital revolution. Review of International Geographical Education Online, 11(5), 4930–4936. https://doi.org/10.48047/rigeo.11.05.368
Davis, Heather (2014). “Stories from wide open, wild country: An Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin” Hobo Magazine 16: 130-131. https://heathermdavis.com/interviews/
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