Editorial
Glory Reitz
Editor-in-Chief
A culture that suppresses open, honest discussion has forced opinions to surface either violently or not at all, and it needs to stop.
In a 2020 article in The Hill called “Afraid to speak your mind? Maybe we’re not as ‘free’ as we think,” Bernard Goldberg wrote about a censorship of Americans’ free speech. But it wasn’t the government or social media platforms silencing them – it was the people themselves.
Goldberg said 62% of Americans don’t say what they believe because they’re afraid of offending someone. This dreading silence doesn’t come from a healthy desire to be kind. If it did, it wouldn’t be a “fear.” Rather, in our volatile internet culture, people know that one wrong word could lead to ridicule from people anywhere in the world.
This fear stunts the people’s ability to communicate and creates a toxic environment. It doesn’t just silence the timid, it emboldens the aggressive. It has shaped the massive culture of internet users to be a bloody battleground with no room for open discussion.
Yes, people can find reassurance in their supportive social media contacts, and may feel they’ve been validated after a flood of comments that agree with them. But these things only create an illusion of positivity, an echo chamber that actually shrinks the users’ thoughts instead of expanding them.
According to Elizabeth Niedbala in a Society for Personality and Social Psychology article called “Ingredients for Conflict: Why we get so angry when people disagree with us,” echo chambers increase toxicity in two ways. First, they acclimate people to sharing their opinions over and over, gaining confidence, but not depth, in their thoughts.
Second, Niedbala said echo chambers surround users with like-minded people to reinforce the validity of their ideas and opinions. With opinions at this point of brittle strength, Niedbala said people become aggressive at the drop of a hat because they are unused to opposition. Not only are they angry that someone is “wrong,” they are offended and confused that someone disagrees with them.
With many social media users following this trend – and many creating real-life echo chambers – people more timid by nature have retreated into themselves.
Instead of relying on internet interactions with the same group of followers, people need to step out into the real world and meet those around them. Your neighbors will not always agree with you, but they are near you – shouldn’t you learn to get along? Even your closest friends may not share every opinion you have, but that does not make them any less worth knowing.
Students need to break the habit of shouting on social media what they wouldn’t discuss aloud with an acquaintance. Instead, we must grow our minds and learn from real people before we close out the possibility of anyone disagreeing.
Leave a Reply