Humans are social creatures, whether naturally or from historical necessity I'm not debating that. In the information age we live in, with all our innovation in technology, we CAN be self sufficient and by that I mean we don't have to use human interaction as much. We can order our groceries or whatever we want to buy online, have it delivered and not once interact. There are more and more job that don't require human interaction and many more we an do from home. However, social media sites exploded and now people even date someone long distance. Some of them have never even met in person or don't vocally chat. Yes, I know about catfishing, but ignore the dating thing and think about gamers for example. There are real social relationships built online, romantic and friendship, all without ever meeting.
We form groups now with people all over the globe from our phones, which I'll remind some of you, used to only be attached to walls and our computers sucked at 56KB dial up internet and they couldn't connect at the same time. Enough talking like I'm your odd older relative, my point is it is amazing to have so much information and opportunities now for even the oddest of us to easily find kinship. We can be solitary, but people cling to groups more than ever and as relationships work, people make concessions to be homogenous. Instead of following what should be easier than ever path to individuality, the general public seems to have regressed to closed groups, justifying their "correctness" by numbers or how squeaky of a wheel they can be to mold the world around them to fit their views. People become more prideful and full of hubris because they are validated by "likes", "shares", and "comments".
Membership in a group is necessary to impact the world around you it seems, individuals without one are often ignored or attacked for not fitting into others' world views. People have grown lazy and don't seek fact from reputable sources who provide proof with citations from sources. We may say we trust someone without researching ourselves because of laziness. We like sensational stories that make us really happy or trigger our disgust, the whole truth is more difficult and time consuming to find out and often more bland than the 20 second clip that fits into our break that obviously "tells the whole story" or is "all we need to know". Give me a break people, I know our lives are busy and we crave to feel something, but what could you call it other than laziness if you spend hours scrolling through entertaining but not useful crap half your day.
We all want to live the right way more or less despite knowingly making wrong choices or even mistakes. We want others to live right too because we have all been wronged. Even the smallest voicing of opinion can now be heard worldwide, so people dip their toes in, recieve validation with "facts" that support our views as well as the "likes" and such in our small or not so small groups. We also begin to fear for the worst and put boundaries up to protect us from views that don't support our own or are even opposite. Extreme views are often shouted the loudest or the most and may be shared or liked by many, not in support, but for reasons like the picture attached or how absurd they find it, I think we've all done it. From the wonderful uniting and world opening internet, we also must realize we also get lies or misunderstandings posted and fear spread. Fear of those on Team B when we are Team A. "Those extreme views are what Team B wants", they seem to or directly say. Maybe even someone we trusts spreads a lie and fear out of anger or comedy, but text doesn't show emotion or tone well in 120 characters, right.
We don't trust the product with one 5 star review, right? It's the same with those who walk their own path or go against the grain of the group to be true to themselves, even if just at that moment. People can only make decisions with the knowledge they have at the moment at best, but emotion or current circumstances play more of a role in what we do than I think any of us would like to admit. It's difficult to be taken seriously and to be trusted as an individual or follow our own path, riddled with landmines even if we are a 5 star review.
We want to act right and others to do the same, but while we have more opportunity than ever before to be true to ourselves and stand alone, groups and lies have gotten bigger for validation and it's more difficult than ever to be trusted accepted alone. Technology has brought great positives like opportunity and great negatives like laziness, but it's there for us to follow our own path as an individual. I hope we can all follow our own path, research facts from reputable sources and change the world for the better while staying open to opposing viewpoints and be respectful of others, realizing new information is there daily to help us make our best hoces for our best selves and others.