Check Your Facts!
Have we forgotten how to do research? At the very least, do most people not know how to use a search engine?I find it increasingly frustrating to see comments or in some instances statuses or tweets that are being just randomly thrown out there as if it is the truth when people have not bothered to do a small amount of research to find out it is not.
How many of you saw the great “It is official it was even on the news. Facebook will start charging due to the new profile changes. If you copy this on your wall your icon will turn blue and facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message on, if not your account will be deleted if you don’t pay.”? For heavens sakes this doesn’t even sound legitimate. And yet so many people posted it.
This is who you are feedingHow often do you see someone post a “child is missing” or “Prayers needed” that seems to almost go viral instantly? Do you stop for a moment to google the information and see if there is any evidence to contradict it? I’m all for helping and praying but I think it is sad to ask people for these things when they are simply not true. It creates sadness, fear, and it feeds energy to the creator of such things. (see Energy Vampires)
The latest trend I have been noticing is commenting with questions that could so simply be answered with a quick google search. Have we become so lazy or so self righteous that we do not believe it is up to us to do that work? Have we become a society of “it’s just easier to ask someone else to check the information”? Again, I’m all for asking questions when someone doesn’t understand something and I’m all for helping one another out. However, sometimes the question is also an accusatory statement which leads to conflict that could have been avoided if the questioner had bothered to take a moment of their time to confirm their facts before making such a statement/question public.
I implore you to check your facts before posting. If you, like myself, are writing an opinion based piece then most times there are few facts to check, however there will always be a few. If you are simply putting up a status or responding to something via a comment, please for the love of all that’s good check the facts first. It takes all of about 2 minutes at the most to make sure you do not come off sounding foolish, looking ignorant, or appearing lazy.
Have we forgotten how to do research? At the very least, do most people not know how to use a search engine?I find it increasingly frustrating to see comments or in some instances statuses or tweets that are being just randomly thrown out there as if it is the truth when people have not bothered to do a small amount of research to find out it is not.
How many of you saw the great “It is official it was even on the news. Facebook will start charging due to the new profile changes. If you copy this on your wall your icon will turn blue and facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message on, if not your account will be deleted if you don’t pay.”? For heavens sakes this doesn’t even sound legitimate. And yet so many people posted it.
This is who you are feeding
The latest trend I have been noticing is commenting with questions that could so simply be answered with a quick google search. Have we become so lazy or so self righteous that we do not believe it is up to us to do that work? Have we become a society of “it’s just easier to ask someone else to check the information”? Again, I’m all for asking questions when someone doesn’t understand something and I’m all for helping one another out. However, sometimes the question is also an accusatory statement which leads to conflict that could have been avoided if the questioner had bothered to take a moment of their time to confirm their facts before making such a statement/question public.
I implore you to check your facts before posting. If you, like myself, are writing an opinion based piece then most times there are few facts to check, however there will always be a few. If you are simply putting up a status or responding to something via a comment, please for the love of all that’s good check the facts first. It takes all of about 2 minutes at the most to make sure you do not come off sounding foolish, looking ignorant, or appearing lazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment