4 ms·

I shared the article in my Facebook feed. It will reach at least a couple of friends that are habitual troll victims. I guess to your point, that probably won't

I shared the article in my Facebook feed. It will reach at least a couple of friends that are habitual troll victims. I guess to your point, that probably won't stop them from being victims/easy bait. At least they'll read it, hopefully.

bmelton 9y ago
I highly doubt it will matter. I was at the dentist's office about 6 months ago, and as I'd had a few dental procedures done over a spread-out timeline, I'd made friends with the dental assistants. We were talking about the news (which was on in the background) and I cautioned the lady at the desk to not put too much stock in it, and to wait around for updates before drawing any conclusions. She asked why, and I explained that the 24 hour news cycle often drops facts -- a couple of segues later, and I made the point that everybody thinks America is more dangerous than ever, largely because of the constant fear-mongering in the news, but crime statistics actually show falling crime rates over the past few decades. She didn't believe me, so I asked her to Google it on the computer in front of her, which resulted in a search result something like this[1], but before she started giving too much credence to it, she Googled a few more times until she found an article about Baltimore crime rates going up, even though we weren't in Baltimore, and neither of us lived in Baltimore, and she'd previously admitted to not having been in Baltimore in more than a decade -- none of that mattered, because her confirmation bias was slaked. [1] - http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/141209_Charts-Homicide-Rates-US-England.jpg.CROP.promovar-mediumlarge.jpg http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_pol...
- seanwilson 9y ago
  We need to promote critical thinking skills somehow (obviously a difficult task though). I don't see how it's a good strategy to simply accept a population lacks critical thinking skills and the only way forward is the impossible goal of stopping all misleading news from reaching people. The people that believe obviously misleading news are just as much at fault as the ones producing the news.
olleromam91 9y ago
Same...and the only person I really care that reads it is my mother =/

bmelton 9y ago

I highly doubt it will matter. I was at the dentist's office about 6 months ago, and as I'd had a few dental procedures done over a spread-out timeline, I'd made friends with the dental assistants. We were talking about the news (which was on in the background) and I cautioned the lady at the desk to not put too much stock in it, and to wait around for updates before drawing any conclusions. She asked why, and I explained that the 24 hour news cycle often drops facts -- a couple of segues later, and I made the point that everybody thinks America is more dangerous than ever, largely because of the constant fear-mongering in the news, but crime statistics actually show falling crime rates over the past few decades. She didn't believe me, so I asked her to Google it on the computer in front of her, which resulted in a search result something like this[1], but before she started giving too much credence to it, she Googled a few more times until she found an article about Baltimore crime rates going up, even though we weren't in Baltimore, and neither of us lived in Baltimore, and she'd previously admitted to not having been in Baltimore in more than a decade -- none of that mattered, because her confirmation bias was slaked. [1] - http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/141209_Charts-Homicide-Rates-US-England.jpg.CROP.promovar-mediumlarge.jpg http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_pol...

seanwilson 9y ago
We need to promote critical thinking skills somehow (obviously a difficult task though). I don't see how it's a good strategy to simply accept a population lacks critical thinking skills and the only way forward is the impossible goal of stopping all misleading news from reaching people. The people that believe obviously misleading news are just as much at fault as the ones producing the news.

olleromam91 9y ago

Same...and the only person I really care that reads it is my mother =/