FOR those of us who frequent social media sites, especially to watch short-form video content, “Vox Pops”, more commonly known as “Street Interviews”, are becoming increasingly familiar. In about 30 minutes of scrolling, we may encounter at least one of these highly entertaining videos where a charismatic interviewer stops a random person in public to ask a random question. Sometimes, the questions are designed to elicit outrage or another emotional response that keeps the viewer engaged. Sometimes, the question is a gentle prompt that allows the respondent to share something interesting about themselves. Sometimes, the interview is completely staged, and the value it provides isn’t even worth the time we spend watching it.
Regardless of the topic or who it features, these videos draw our attention to an interesting modern phenomenon. Because of the reach technology gives us, it is quite normal for someone to learn about an incident happening in another part of the world almost instantly. People can easily access discussions about politics or celebrity drama from a country thousands of miles away. In many ways, this reach is empowering, giving us a sense of responsibility and interconnectedness. Through this interconnectedness, we can donate money to help people in crisis or speak up for those being oppressed. We can witness history as it is being created.
However, it also creates a unique problem. In today’s world, everyone is expected to have an opinion on everything and be quite vocal about it. There seems to be no excuse for not being aware of a social issue, topic or popular incident. More importantly, there seems to be no excuse for failing to speak about what we encounter on the internet. It is not a problem that we hold a higher social responsibility in today’s world. The problem is that we are expected to act before we understand.
As far-reaching as social media can be, it’s true that when we hear about an issue or incident, we learn someone’s opinion before we learn about the topic itself. An influencer pops up on your feed, speaking rapidly and listing reasons you should switch from a brand you’ve used since you were a child. Then, before you can understand why you are being encouraged to do so, the next influencer appears and tells you why it is offensive to wear neon pink shoes. Both pieces of information require you to stop for at least a few minutes and read more to learn whether the news is true and what you can do in response. Yet, you never do. Most of us do not. Most of us use social media to take a break and relax. This means that even when we encounter something that needs further attention, we usually keep scrolling rather than stopping to educate ourselves, because stopping to learn more every time we hear something new would make the experience less gratifying.
So, we go about our day with an incomplete piece of information tucked away at the back of our minds. When we are stopped at random by an interviewer, we might know to say that we would never wear pink shoes or use a particular brand, but what we would be sharing is a regurgitation of an opinion we have encountered and understood as being popular, not an opinion that we ourselves have developed after gaining sufficient information. This culture can eventually become an unfortunate disease – a form of unintentional conformity.
This particular problem is dangerous because we are unintentionally allowing ourselves to adopt the same thoughts that everyone else is having, which would not be too bad if it were about a meal choice or an outfit, but becomes infinitely more serious when it is about social issues that require you to think, speak and act. The only way to combat this problem is to be confident enough to say “I don’t know” when we truly don’t have an answer, because that is the only way we can begin to find one. We don’t need an answer to every question or an opinion on every topic; we just need to be open to learning.
