Most of us are very conscious of the food we consume and try to monitor our diet based on our age, health goals, or doctor's recommendations. We know that the type of food we consume has a direct effect on our physical health. The origin of many serious diseases can be traced to our dietary habits, this forces us to be a responsible consumer of food. But how many of us pay equal attention to our psychological diet? How many of us are even conscious about the type of food we feed to our minds? It should not come as a shock to anyone that the type of content we feed to our brain directly affects our thinking and in turn affects our behavior. Our personal and social life is affected by what we think and hence our psychological diet matters a lot in determining our social health. So, why don't we pay attention to our psychological diet, and if we want how we can monitor our psychological diet?
The first problem is that we can't see or feel thoughts like we feel other tangible things like the food we consume or gadgets we buy. When we eat food we can smell it, feel it, taste it and these factors can dictate whether we like that food or not. It is true that information also comes in different flavors, we do reject or accept some information or thoughts just based on their source, but such behavior is normally associated with some strong religious or cultural emotions. But in today's era, we are bombarded with information, it is continuously fed to us through different outlets like social media, online news, and other traditional sources (like books and print media). We hardly get any time to scrutinize them before consuming them as we receive them on our newly "acquired organ" called a cellphone. This is where lies the rub. On one hand, it is great that if we want we can receive a lot of information from different sources, but at the same time, these platforms guess our habits, likes, and dislikes and can channel only particular types of information toward us (welcome to the world of Artificial Intelligence). Most of the information we receive, especially on social networks, we have no clue from where it is coming or how authentic it is.
When we know that the type of information we consume shapes our thinking shouldn't we be more careful to verify the content or check the reliability of the source of that information before allowing it to become part of our intellect and sharing it with others? Getting to know every side of any issue is necessary and getting information from different sources may help us to look at the same issue with many different angles. But unfortunately, this is not what people are doing. These social media networks and groups are designed in such a way that people receive the same type of information from many unverified and unreliable sources. When this information gets validated by their idols (politicians, celebrities) who also get that information from the same unverified sources, it becomes a fact for that group. So, the lies not only get perpetuated openly but also go unchecked and get consumed as facts. It seems every group, political leader, or political party has its own set of facts, the same way as every religion has their own set of facts about its own book or messiahs. This is not a very healthy situation for any society.
When people stop caring about the quality of their personal diet society suffers from a serious public health crisis. In the same way, when people are careless about their psychological diet society starts suffering from various social and intellectual issues like political and racial polarization. If you are interested in preserving the good psychological health of your community, monitor the quality of your psychological diet, verify the information before you consume it, and see the effect. Our mental health is as important as our physical health. Remember, responsibility always starts with us, be responsible and share the information responsibly.
The first problem is that we can't see or feel thoughts like we feel other tangible things like the food we consume or gadgets we buy. When we eat food we can smell it, feel it, taste it and these factors can dictate whether we like that food or not. It is true that information also comes in different flavors, we do reject or accept some information or thoughts just based on their source, but such behavior is normally associated with some strong religious or cultural emotions. But in today's era, we are bombarded with information, it is continuously fed to us through different outlets like social media, online news, and other traditional sources (like books and print media). We hardly get any time to scrutinize them before consuming them as we receive them on our newly "acquired organ" called a cellphone. This is where lies the rub. On one hand, it is great that if we want we can receive a lot of information from different sources, but at the same time, these platforms guess our habits, likes, and dislikes and can channel only particular types of information toward us (welcome to the world of Artificial Intelligence). Most of the information we receive, especially on social networks, we have no clue from where it is coming or how authentic it is.
When we know that the type of information we consume shapes our thinking shouldn't we be more careful to verify the content or check the reliability of the source of that information before allowing it to become part of our intellect and sharing it with others? Getting to know every side of any issue is necessary and getting information from different sources may help us to look at the same issue with many different angles. But unfortunately, this is not what people are doing. These social media networks and groups are designed in such a way that people receive the same type of information from many unverified and unreliable sources. When this information gets validated by their idols (politicians, celebrities) who also get that information from the same unverified sources, it becomes a fact for that group. So, the lies not only get perpetuated openly but also go unchecked and get consumed as facts. It seems every group, political leader, or political party has its own set of facts, the same way as every religion has their own set of facts about its own book or messiahs. This is not a very healthy situation for any society.
When people stop caring about the quality of their personal diet society suffers from a serious public health crisis. In the same way, when people are careless about their psychological diet society starts suffering from various social and intellectual issues like political and racial polarization. If you are interested in preserving the good psychological health of your community, monitor the quality of your psychological diet, verify the information before you consume it, and see the effect. Our mental health is as important as our physical health. Remember, responsibility always starts with us, be responsible and share the information responsibly.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
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