Slow and Steady Wins the Race to the Truth

We live in the age of now. We want to know things right now. When we text or call someone we expect an immediate response. Getting our packages delivered in two days used to be fast, but now we want them today. I’m not sure exactly when we made the shift to this instant gratification mentality, but I remember a time before it. The major difference between then and now is cell phones – and I’m pretty sure they’re to blame for this shift. With cell phones everyone is reachable at any time. And with the explosion of smartphone use, we all carry around a computer with unfettered access to the World Wide Web.

I asked my husband a question over dinner the other night and he didn’t know the answer so he responded, “Google it.” I honestly don’t even remember what the question was at this point, but after watching “The Problem with our Phones,” I wonder if it’s something we could have come up with an answer for had we taken more time to think about it. It’s so easy to just Google something. If I’m in a meeting at work and want to know about an upcoming conference we’re discussing, I’ll pick up my phone and Google it. If I’m planning a trip and want to know what my route options are, I’ll check Google Maps. When I schedule an appointment, it goes on my Google Calendar. And my email, that’s Google too. It’s hard to imagine how we got by before Google. Sure there were other search engines, like AltaVista and Ask Jeeves, but Google seems to have taken searching the web up a notch and found a way to ingrain itself in our lives.

I had a computer when I was an undergraduate student and we had internet access, but if I was writing a paper I went to the library and borrowed books. It’s funny to look back on this now, but I remember thinking how easy it was to search for books I needed because the card catalogue had been computerized (something that was just starting to happen at my small-town library back home). Books were considered a reliable source of information, this was particularly true for research texts that documented their experiments and findings and had a wealth of sources listed throughout. Now most things are on the internet, where anyone can post anything and try to pass it off as the truth.

Just look at the professor in the article, “How Your Brain Tricks You Into Believing Fake News,” who thought that a website that pushes a particular viewpoint was factual because it looked scholarly. While the Stanford History Education Group, which was running the experiment to see why people are so bad about judging websites and how to improve that, found that some of the smartest people were making bad judgement calls, it also found that fact-checkers were much better at identifying problematic sites.

The difference between academics and fact-checkers is that scholars like the professor didn’t leave the webpage, they used the site itself to determine its trustworthiness. Fact-checkers looked into the source by using Google (and other search engines, I’m sure) to find information about who was behind the site. This is something that I do regularly. I’m not sure if my background in journalism is what led me to question online sources, or just a general concern and distrust of sites because of the potential for misinformation, but it’s a practice I encourage others to employ. I also won’t share a link to a story unless I’ve read at least part of it. I find, like the Time article notes, that too often people share things based on headlines alone. They don’t take the time to actually look at what they are promoting online.

This brings me back to my earlier point about cell phones. In this time of wanting everything now, we not only expect to be able to find answers immediately, and get immediate responses to texts and emails, we also seem to be juggling more than ever before. Between work, keeping up with the endless stream of emails, and checking in on our social networks we’re constantly connected and engaged. We’re also easily distracted. Case in point, I stopped writing this blog post at least twice to respond to messages I received.

Operating at this hyper-active level doesn’t necessarily mean we can accomplish more in less time. I find that when I get distracted by email or social media, I’m less productive because it can be difficult to shift between tasks. Because we have a finite amount of time in our days, we often skim emails and sometimes just read the headlines. The problem with this is that we’re missing out. We’re not getting the full story when we only read the headlines and by skimming emails we can miss some of the content, which then leads to more work. If I only saw the first question and missed three at the bottom of the email, my response will be incomplete, which will lead to more emails, which equals more time. But had I taken the time to slow down and read the full email, I may have sent a complete response and finished the task in one attempt, rather than several.

Similarly, if we take the time to check the source of our information, we can help reduce the spread of false or misleading content on the internet. But this must be done thoughtfully. Too often I see people Google something to check the sourcing and turn to Wikipedia or other sources, which can themselves be questionable. Wikipedia is often one of the first things to come up in search engine results and rightfully so because it contains so much information. However, Wikipedia should not be confused with an encyclopedia. It consists of user-generated content and that information is only as good as its source. It would be easy for someone to, for example, create a page saying that vaccines are bad and to source slanted sites that us pseudo-science to make their claims. The beauty of Wikipedia is that the sources are listed in footnotes and users can click on them to see the source of the information and then make a judgement call.

However, knowing how to judge information isn’t always easy. I think the Propaganda Game illustrates the types of misinformation out there and can train people to more easily spot it on the web. And the John Jay guide provides a good overview of the importance of evaluating online sources. But in order for either of these resources to be effective, people have to take the time to stop and think about the information they’re reading and sharing.

This blog post is an assignment for an Identity, Technology & Communication course at NJIT.