By Jan Vicente B. Pekas
The consumption of the various content on social media is very addicting. Within that cesspool are various commentaries, reactions, clips and clips of all that the algorithm has designed for the user. It is stimulating and keeps you wanting more and more. From starting our days in the morning and winding down at night, the act of scrolling through social media is always there and has ingrained itself in our lives. To let the time spent during your commute go faster, scroll away. When you simply have nothing to do, scroll away. In our quest to finding stimulation, we have inadvertently become content to consuming content that may very well be poisonous.
The short form content we see on social media can be beneficial in some ways. When people with inhumane jobs that have them working 24/7 finally have their rare and small breaks, it is the shorter clips that can provide that needed relief while well-done news videos can effectively deliver the necessary things and keep them informed to a degree.
However, as stimulating and effective these clips are on social media, we cannot avoid the risks that come with them. Propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and just plain stupidity run rampant on all social media platforms. One moment you are watching someone coherently explain their view on a certain topic, then next you are watching a blabbering idiot spread fake news or even incredibly evil opinions for all to see and consume.
It is beyond infuriating to watch and even more so to see so many people than you had expected to agree with such an idiotic and evil view. Take for example the amount of people who saw it fit to joke about activists being killed by soldiers some time ago. They have fallen so deep inside the propaganda machine, they have been convinced that being activists is a proper justification to be murdered, physically mutilated and paraded around social media.
Social media shows so many of our nation’s problems. It is infuriating but it can overwhelm our minds. Render each person to be so dependent on stimulation they become the opposite of a productive person, the very person needed to reverse the situation in our country.
Social media transforms us to being impatient, someone who always needs to watch and feel something. It feeds us poison that destroy healthy minds. When our nation badly needs smarter and wiser people, social media transforms us to becoming the opposite. An impatient, addicted, angry, and overwhelmed Filipino.
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