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Home  | Human Flourishing  | Human Growth | Click Bait

Teasing Our Curiosity, Poisoning Our Minds

BY: T. Franklin Murphy | January  22, 2019 (edited January 5, 2022)
A computer keyboard with a large red button with the words
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We are the victims of our own lazy minds, allowing campaigns of senseless propaganda to determine what we read and how to think.
Each age presents new dangers. Our technological advances create unchartered troubles for every generation. Our world today has its own enemy, threatening well-being, and impacting thought. Foreign propaganda used to be the work of rudimentary operations, spreading leaflets among a population, hoping to sway a population. Now, stunning and easy meanings are available, swooping in quietly, spreading to millions of people, and duping them with false, disruptive and dividing dogma. We are trading the value of deep work for the shallowness of emotional intrigue.

Customized News to Entice  Clicks

Our smartphones deliver custom feeds, based on our activity. Those feeds, whether through social media or a search engine are hijacked with superfluous and tempting links designed to draw attention and motivate a click. The creators are not in the business of deep work, but mindless emotional stimulation.
"We are trading the value of deep work for the shallowness of emotional intrigue."

Shocking News to   Entice Clicks

The shiny story of intrigue, the uncovered conspiracy, the bright image with a five-word mantra vie for our attention, barter for our click. The internet, with all its wonders, can suck us into the darkness of shallow, mindless clicking, gaining nothing but anger, a sense of injustice, or worthless ego stroking. We waste hours clicking worthless junk that rots our minds.
 
I’m concerned. The lost hours of productivity is bad enough; but the problem is much worse. We no longer want to think. We want our information delivered in short bursts of 240 letters or less. Candidates for political office spend more time, money, and thought creating clickbait rather than thoughtful investigation and presentation of the important issues. A catch phrase is more important than experience.

Fight Against Clickbait by Mindfully Choosing What to Read

Perhaps, we can intervene, fighting against the viral with our own careful examination of the information flowing into our homes. Instead of allowing an algorithm to determine what we read, we can purposely seek something deeper. Searching topics of interest that create passion rather than allowing a social media account to capture our attention sensational news from unverified sources.

We can’t solve the world’s growing problems with a simple click of the mouse. We can’t understand complex issues through propagandized and biased sources.

​We must build a foundation of knowledge to be able to evaluate the slough of trash flowing into our minds. Once the people are educated, the candidates will transform as well, unable to slip through the democratic process un-scrutinized by an informed public.

 
Refrain from clicking, seek something deeper, and becoming part of the answer for a better future.
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Our biased approach to new information limits learning, we get stuck in the ruts of the past, failing to gain essential wisdom.
Truth is elusive. What is proven today may be challenged tomorrow. We need a different approach that allows for confidence in action without a closed mind to possible alternatives.

​Other Flourishing Life Society articles of interest on this topic:

Freedom of choice is earned through mulling over possibilities, evaluating conflicting data and then determining a course of action.
Picture
Foolish, Foolish Me. All That We Do Not Know. A Flourishing Life Society article link
Feelings are not a fool proof method for decisions. Our biased reliance on our own intuition can lead us astray, especially when we rely on our thoughts over proven and compelling research.
Ignorance by Distraction a Flourishing Life Society article
FLS internal Link. Doubt, Search, Find: The vulnerable state of doubt leads to a curious search for more. We often neglect learning in exchange for secure and misguided dogma.
Beliefs blind our vision. We see only what we wish to see, even when the truth is obvious and helpful.
FLS link. Search for Truth
FLS internal link. Question Everything. Living More than a Blind Existence. Life can be lived in blindness, missing the richness of existence and forced into a blind march through the nothingness.
Motivation. Tips for Staying Motivated. A Flourishing Life Society article image link
We oversimplify our world, create ungiving structures and then judge others by those views.
Narrowing Our View: Specialized News Feeds and Contracting Views. A Flourishing Life Society article link
Clickbait: Teasing Our Curiosity, Poisoning Our Minds. A Flourishing Life Society article link
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