off my chest
it makes seem petty but I promise you
this is something that really gets under
my skin and I need a share right now if
I look horrendous in a dress and I ask
you how I look in it I don’t want oh I
mean it doesn’t look that bad or
k-league Wow your hair looks amazing no
you need to tell me this dress is bad
that I probably should throw it out but
reality is everyone says these lives
these little white lies easily top 5 pet
peeves um
now these lies may seem insignificant at
first but when it comes to the real
world and slightly more serious
situations they can add up to something
that holds a lot more weight soon it’s
nearly impossible to discern the big
lies from the little lies and then the
truth from all the lies and so we find
ourselves in the real zeitgeist of today
the post truth world as we call it so
quote Jack Nicholson and a few good men
you want the truth
you can’t handle the truth now or worse
yet we slipped into the mist of having
no ledge of truth to hang on to
according to the oxford dictionary post
truth is an adjective that defines
something relating to or denoting
circumstances in which objective facts
are less influential in shaping public
opinion than appeals to emotion and
personal belief so essentially we’re
ignoring how the facts of the story and
instead towards how emotions tell it
instead and by doing this we’re sharing
stories that straight from the truth and
are twisted in favor of someone’s
beliefs or their practices but how does
this happen so easily when we can go on
google and find all the facts we could
ever need
a professor at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst
has answered this question for us great
guy this study tested how quickly people
abandoned videos while they’re loading
50% of people don’t wait for more than
10 seconds before they choose to give up
on waiting I mean I’m gonna be honest
with you 10 seconds a little much with
this type of impatience or like forget
the whole story I’ll just see what this
headlines doesn’t call it a day
disclaimer you can’t be caught up with
American politics and a single headline
it just it doesn’t work like that
another reason false information is
spread so easily involves a growing
number of people who just don’t take the
time to read according to a study done
by the Pew Research Center and the
Gallup News Service the number of people
that don’t read a book during the year
has increased by 14 percent in only 38
years now it’s understandable how like
by all this information receive daily
like we feel overwhelmed I mean not too
long ago people got their news from
newspapers in the morning and then from
TV at 6 p.m. sharp every day this
schedule pressed all the newspapers to
share the correct news because they have
an entire day to collect all the data
and information needed to make an entire
news story but today news networks have
the ability to do 24 hours 24 hour
coverage of events happening across the
world the problem with this is that when
you’re constantly on air for 24 hours
the story is hold bit by bit without all
the facts and data together all at once
this exposes us to the possibility of
sharing news that isn’t completely
accurate or may even be completely wrong
our social networks work exactly the
same way news networks like CNN and Fox
News are always racing to be the first
network to cover the story on social
media they are very very aware of the
audience they can reach in 140
characters in a video link on Twitter
and then on top of these sweets we’re
guilty of
formation bias researchers from the Ohio
State University’s did a study in 2009
that tested the effect of confirmation
bias on how we gather information they
took about 150 people and surveyed how
they felt about politics their political
attitudes and their opinions on four key
issues then the participants were sent
to browse an online forum with articles
that had opposing views on those four
key issues the software they were using
recorded how long each person spent when
reading an article when the participant
agreed with an articles perspective they
spent about 36 percent more time reading
that article interesting now I’ve laid
out all the issues we have but what
we’re really missing our solutions I was
planning on surprising you with the
solution slide that I made but you guys
thought of it ahead of time thankfully
though I have written I have written
this all out all nice and neat and
simple so we can run it through problem
number one in patience take the time to
do your own research
don’t retweet a headline because at work
when do we do that the world is ending
at 12 p.m. tomorrow don’t pan it and
don’t make everyone else panic because
you did the sharing before you do the
reading problem number two the
overabundance of information one sweet
but not so sweet thing about 24 hours
news coverage is that you can check in
at any time so easily you can check in
every few hours to get the full correct
story instead of sharing bits and pieces
finally problem number three dealing
with social media one way to combat
confirmation bias is with skepticism
follow people you may not agree with
question all the information you receive
this will challenge the way you form
your opinions and go about living in
this society today and it’s okay to slow
things down in this fast-paced society
we live in it’s really easy to let
simple habits go like picking up a book
and reading it
or researching something we really care
a lot about now it definitely is easier
to read a headline then scroll through
an article but these little things are
what helps us be a better community
better society in school at home in our
neighborhood everywhere these false
stories and false information are
hurting our society way faster than the
truth is being spread so don’t fall into
the hashtag bandwagon for example
remember Kony 2012 you or your parents
had to donate to this cause for the
Invisible Children in Central Africa and
you got like a poster a sticker and in
some cases nothing at all
whatever happened to Kony I’ll tell you
what happens Kony nothing and nobody
even noticed because we lost interest
anyway so I should probably end this
speech talking about or well as you all
know this classic novel in 1984 is again
a best-seller because of this post truth
phenomenon that he seemed to have
predicted in the middle of the last
century but I won’t talk about where
well I won’t double speak cuz to be
honest I don’t really remember much of
that novel I got distracted about 100
pages in aha and if I pretended to talk
about it it would be lying so let’s just
be real and stick with the truth thank
you
[Applause] mmm