The Social Dilemma and the Need for Truth
Over the past week, numerous conversations around the usage of social media have been sparked by the new Netflix documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’. We are becoming increasingly aware of the ways in which our data is being stored and used as well as how much we are addicted to our phones. And yet, the most intriguing part of this documentary for me was the impact of social media on spreading fake news and polarisation.
At the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak and lockdowns there was a renewed sense of community awareness, of caring for one another and helping the most vulnerable, and yet in the last few months conversations have become increasingly heated from public debates to family discussions. The vast amount of time spent at home meant more communication occurred through social media and this has heightened thepolarising impact of communicating in this way.
As Western societies we have praised individual freedom – freedom of thought, speech, expression, and belief… and these are all good things. We have developed a worldview which says “you can think and believe whatever you want as long as it doesn’t affect me”. A world where every person is allowed to have “their truth” as long as it doesn’t impact “my truth”.
“If everyone is entitled to their own facts, there’s really no need for compromise, no need for people to come together. In fact, there’s really no need for people to interact. We need to have some shared understanding of reality.” – the social dilemma
This idea of individual truth which initially allowed people to work together easily regardless of their beliefs has quickly led to polarisation. With the help of social media we can easily hear more from people who agree with us and less from those who disagree. We can build upon our truth until it is so convincing that regardless of what evidence may be available, we can justify whatever our beliefs may be.However, it is not just the opportunity for some people to propagate fake news and conspiracy theories that is the problem.
“If we don’t agree on what is true or that there is such a thing as truth, we’re toast. This is the problem beneath other problems because if we can’t agree on what’s true, then we can’t navigate out of any of our problems.” – the social dilemma
In order to work together to solve the problems in our world, we must agree on what is true and what is not… simply saying “that is your truth and this is mine” is not enough to enable us to collaborate in these important matters.
One of consequences of living in a world where people create fake news that spreads incredibly quickly is that we lose our own ability to discern what is true and what is not true.
In the social dilemma, it was described like this:
“It’s like we have less and less control about who we are and what we believe”.
Is it possible for us to gain this control? Can we know thetruth? What even is truth?
At the heart of Christianity is a person named Jesus who didn’t just claim to know the truth, he claimed to be the truth.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
What if truth wasn’t a series of facts but it was a person?
What difference would that make to how we discover, learn, discern what truth is?
If truth is a person then we can know truth through relationship, not through popular opinion.
Jesus who claims to be the truth invites us to know truth through relationship with him and through relationship with others.
Especially in this polarised world, we need to engage in conversations with people who think differently from us andto explore the evidence for their beliefs rather than just assuming that it is a conspiracy theory or that it must be false.
Who is one person that you know who sees the world differently to you that you could start a conversation with today?