I wish we could take things at face value, but the internet has made it impossible to tell where lies start and end. How do you know when you should be skeptical, especially when the subject is so foreign to you. Is it worth the effort to search for answers to questions you don’t know exist? Or, should you just make your judgment and move on?
Throughout the entirety of Verified, there is an emphasis on restraint. Use restraint when making your own assumptions and when conducting research. Restraint is key when you are out of your depths: ignorance. Chapters 4 and 5 shine a spotlight on the harm that arises when ignorance is taken advantage of.
Chapter 4: Seeing Is Not Believing
This chapter focuses on lateral reading and click restraint. The former of which is about how “you use the web to read the web” (97). Lateral reading emphasizes gathering information on the source, rather than dwelling on the claims they are making. The example used in the chapter refers to a study in which students and professors were asked to determine the reliability of two sources. By not investigating the source of the claims, the participants chose the more professionally put together site. In actuality, the site they chose spews misinformation that boosts their own agenda.
The point of this example is that people often make the mistake of believing what is right in front of them, rather than taking a step back. In their ignorance, they “had no inkling that something was amiss” (95).
Skepticism begins to set in. However, what happens when people become overly skeptical. As you will see, I view these chapters as two sides of the same coin
Chapter 5: The Fear Of Believing
My main point of interest from this chapter comes from this statement: “Gullibility presents itself as the inability to believe anything” (109). The entire guide has been a cautionary tale of believing claims that may come from untrustworthy sources, and how to take steps to verify what you can believe. Now, the script flipped, it cautions how skepticism may lead to further confusion.
In our ignorance, we become more skeptical of the truth. Are we being unreasonable, or is the site actually unreliable? Trust compression (the dilution of reliable information) has made it so we must investigate sources for reliability, “no matter how authoritative, proven, and trustworthy that source may be” (109). So, an authoritative website matters, except when there is an existing agenda. An expert’s information is reliable, except when they are in the minority.
Takeaway
I am too ignorant on too many things to believe or question anything. Just look for known reliable sources, rather than believing anything you see on twitter. Take any health scares with a grain of salt if it is not coming straight from OSHA.
Comments
3 responses to “Ignorance Is Bliss”
Hello! You brought up some great points in your article. I especially enjoyed your section about the skepticism some people approach internet research with. The quote you pulled summed that chapter up in a really startling way–we can definitely take our distrust too far, to the point where we never actually find out the truth about anything. You mentioned investigating the source itself, and that’s a big part of battling overskepticism. Context is crucial in determining the reliability of a source on any given topic, like how you said expert knowledge is important–except when that expert’s opinion is the minority or fringe one. Thanks for your perspective on these ideas!
Ignorance is bliss, and you hit the mark.
I love your major takeaways from the readings this week! I love your major points on lateral reading, and how without it, you can simply fall for the articles trap and not allow yourself to expand and truly understand what you might begin to read. Not only taglines, but how it looks is a great way to lure people in, just as you stated, even if they look pretty, they can still be full of nonsense.
I love you point that you pull directly from the book on, we have to investigate no matter how trustworthy it may seem. That is such a big thing to say, but creates positive habits that allow you to not just judge it by its cover, but rather judge it by its information. This can help avoid things like. Trust compression, which are directly linked to the ignorance and the human mind, and allow for you to create that trust for yourself.
Hi! I love the question you ask at the beginning, “Is it worth the effort to search for answers to questions you don’t know exist?” I think this is a really good question to ask because it really forces us to question how much information we really need to search for. I like the steps given by Verified. They’re important to be familiar with and often important to use but I won’t pretend that I’m immune to occasionally making quick judgements and moving on. I won’t even pretend that’s something I want to be immune to because then I would quite literally spend all my time doing research which would honestly suck. I think questions like these are really important to consider alongside a book like this because it allows us to consider the practical application.